Fragments
by Xylobones
Summary: Blurr didn't die - simple fact, but his memory was lost and Shockwave's still intent on ending him now he's been rebuilt. Can the femme who risked her life to save Blurr's spark restore his lost memories before Shockwave catches up to them?
1. Search and Rescue

****

**Okay, so this is the first Transformers fic I've ever written, so go easy on me if I get some of the lingo wrong. Anyway, this is an idea I've been brewing for quite some time and I've got the first three and a bit chapters written up already. I hope it's good!**

******Blurb:**

******Blurr didn't die - simple fact. But when his remains are recovered and his body rebuilt, the young femme who found him becomes intent on restoring the memory he lost. Will her self-given quest prove successful, or will Blurr's memory remain lost? **

******Set during _Transformers Animated_ Season 3. Rating may go up.**

**********Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter One: Search and Rescue

"I can't catch you, but I _can _trap you," Shockwave purred as he tapped at some buttons on the console by the door. He heard the distant clunk of the steel doors within closing, and his single optic narrowed with spiteful glee as he watched the blue dot that represented Blurr slow down and stop as his route out was blocked.

Blurr pushed against the wall with all his might, doing his best to push it back. He couldn't die here, he _wouldn't _die here! There had to be a way out! He pushed and pushed but the walls were too heavy for him, they just kept on coming, and to Blurr it felt horrifically slow.

Everything was squeezed out of him as the walls pressed in on him, and as they crushed him only one thought passed through Blurr's processor.

"I will not die here."

* * *

"There has to be _something _here I can sell," Flash Bang thought out loud, looking about the heap of to-be-incinerated scrap. She was desperate for some Energon, but couldn't understand why it was so darned expensive.

Thing like the ridiculous price of Energon began a tirade of thoughts that ended in Flash Bang feeling certain she could run the planet better than anyone else could. Not that she'd want to – she was only a messenger, and not a very well-known one. Her femme creator had opened up a delivery service of her own a few months after her partner, Flash Bang's mech creator, died in the Great War, and Flash Bang was one of her primary deliverers. But the young femme dreamed of an infinitely greater life. She wanted to be known, to meet mechs, to scale the ranks of Cybertron, to see other worlds, to be _someone._

She clambered through the piles of junk, conscious of her limited time there. The incinerator was set to go off before long. She had been searching for hours, and was fairly sure she wasn't going to find anything valuable. But then, something very heavy fell on her head.

"Ow!" she yelped as she fell over. She sat where she was for a moment, dizzy from the sudden impact. "What on Cybertron was that?"

She looked about her, optics scanning for anything that hadn't been there before. Her blue optics fell on something that was equally as blue – a large cube. On closer inspection, Flash Bang realised it was actually a cube of crushed metal. She took it in her servos, not anticipating the burning heat of it.

"Ouch!" she cried, shaking her servos to cool them down. "What ever this was it was severely overworked recently."

She knelt down to get a better look at it. There didn't seem to be anything in particular about it. It was just crushed metal. Flash Bang was about to turn away from it when she saw something inside it through a large gash. It was a very faint glow, and it looked a little bit like a tiny spark. She took a piece of metal from the floor to poke at it with, moving the cube to a better angle so she could see inside. And there it was, clear as day, a very weak spark glowing within.

"What is this?" she wondered out loud. If it was alive then it was in terrible shape, she _had _to get some help immediately! But how could she get it anywhere if it was too hot to touch? She looked about her for something to use, and eventually her optics fell on a spool of steel cord.

"Brilliant," she said as she took it and began to tie it to the cube. She took a thick sheet of scrap metal and tied it to her back, using it to protect her shell from the heat of the cube as she strapped it in place. She was ready to go, but she still hadn't found anything to sell.

"Warning: incinerator activated," a voice said over the intercom.

"Oh, slag, you're _kidding_ me!" she cried. The fire erupted into life just feet behind her, causing her to jump out of her shell in surprise and run for the side of the rubbish heap. She dug her servos into the monumental pile and began to scale it up to the hatch she'd come in through.

_I am not going to die_, she kept telling herself, _I will not die here!_

The added weight of the cube on Flash Bang's back made it hard to move as fast as she would have liked, but she didn't stop to get rid of it. The cube was _alive! _She couldn't leave it!

She was nearly at the top, and she couldn't be more grateful to Primus, but then the rubbish began to move. The fire was melting the rubbish quicker than she'd thought, and it was quickly dragging her down with it. She carried on going, however, determination overriding everything else. She felt the heat licking at her heel struts which only spurred her on faster. Something about the whole situation seemed dreadfully important, not that she felt her life was a waste. But the cube… the heavy lump of living metal strapped to her back seemed to be infinitely important. But Flash Bang was being dragged down quicker than she was climbing up. Was she doomed?

"You can do it," a weak voice said.

"Who said that?" Flash Bang asked, wanting to look around but knowing there were considerably more important things to do.

"Who do you think?" the voice asked somewhat shakily. She didn't bother to pursue the argument, as she'd just managed to come across a rather handy ladder that had been thrown into the incinerator. She climbed the ladder swiftly, and only just managed to get off it and into the tunnel at the top before it fell back into the flames.

"Thank Primus," she muttered as she collapsed onto the floor of the tunnel. "Now to get help."

She knew exactly who to go to, and she knew exactly where he'd be. The walk wasn't long, but it was filled with patrols and she was out long after curfew. Flash Bang wasn't called Flash Bang for nothing, however. She had a trick that no other Autobot had built into their systems – flash bang charges.

She walked down the street, taking to the shadows to avoid been seen as much as possible. She hoped not to have to use her charges, but she would do happily if needs be. She wasn't far from her destination when she was spotted.

"You there!" a patroller called out. "What are you doing here?"

"Take that!" Flash Bang called out dramatically, throwing out a charge. She was impervious to the charges herself, but the patrollers weren't. They all clawed at their visors as the vicious flash burnt their optics and the tremendous bang sent their audio receptors buzzing. Flash Bang giggled innocently and took off at full speed down the street.

It wasn't long after that when she arrived at Perceptor's lab. Perceptor had been helped by Flash Bang's mech creator stellar cycles ago, back in the days before the war and before he'd deleted his own emotions. He owed her family a favour.

"Perceptor!" she yelled as she rushed into his lab unannounced. "I need you to look at this." She dumped the cube rather ungracefully down on an empty workbench by Perceptor, who had yet to even acknowledge her arrival. He continued to work on whatever it was he was doing, poking at some Energon-enriched substance. After about a minute, he looked up at her.

"What is this, Flash Bang?" he asked. That gratingly artificial voice of his always made her cringe. "You do know it is after curfew, correct?"

"Yes, Perceptor," she huffed. "I know full well it is." She jabbed a digit in the direction of the cube. "There's a spark inside."

If he'd had emotions, Perceptor would have looked at her with disbelief. "Really, Flash Bang? This isn't another of your jokes, is it?"

"_No, _Perceptor!" she insisted, frustrated. "Take a look and see for yourself. I nearly fried over this thing so if you don't take a look at it I am gonna be so slagging annoyed you won't believe it!"

Perceptor, against his better judgment, took a look into the cube through the gash on one side. The metal had cooled down by now, and was perfectly fine to touch. Flash Bang waited nervously, hoping the spark hadn't gone out during the trip. Perceptor didn't look surprised, obviously, but he pushed himself away and simply said to Flash Bang, "You're right."

"I _told _you!" she moaned. "Do you have any idea who it is?"

"None," Perceptor admitted. "No blue coloured Autobots have been reported missing recently."

"Can you _do _anything?" Flash Bang prompted. Perceptor stood up and began to peruse his vast collection of tools.

"Yes," he said. "But I'll require Wheeljack."

"Well, _I'm _a messenger-bot, ain't I?" she asked sarcastically.

"Which is why I assumed you would fetch him when I prompted," Perceptor told her as he took a selection of tools from their stand. Flash Bang saw no point in continuing to try getting an emotion-based reaction from the scientist and left to find Wheeljack.

Flash Bang pottered along the brightly lit hallways for a while, looking into rooms for Wheeljack. Thankfully, for the sake of her dignity, most were empty and she therefore had no reason to bumble about with excuses before making a rushed apology and exit.

After a while she became bored of looking for Wheeljack, and was about to go back to Perceptor to ask about where he might be when she turned a corner and crashed head-long into missing scientist.

"Primus!" he yelled as he dropped data pads everywhere. Flash Bang fell to the floor from the impact, and eagerly took to scooping up data pads when she saw what had happened.

"I'm so sorry, sir," she said quickly. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"Not to worry, femme," he replied as he picked up the last of the data pads. "Nothing was broken."

He took a moment to look at Flash Bang and, when he didn't recognise her, ask her who she was.

"Flash Bang, sir," she told him. "I'm a delivery-bot for Mercury Deliveries and sparkling of the owner, Mercury."

"You're _Mercury's_ sparkling?" he asked, slightly in disbelief. "As in Gearshift's sparkmate?"

"Yes, sir," Flash Bang said quietly. Gearshift had fought in the war, and had died protecting Iacon from the Decepticons. Flash Bang and Mercury had both been devastated by their loss, but it had prompted Mercury to start her delivery business in order to support herself and Flash Bang. Flash Bang had still learnt every thing she knew from Gearshift, and was thus very close to him.

"I was sorry to hear of his death," Wheeljack said softly. "I still am. He was a brilliant bot."

"Thank you, sir," she said.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," he said as he moved to go past her. "I've got work to do."

"Sir, wait!" Flash Bang called out, suddenly remembering why she was there.

"What is it?" he asked, turning back to look at her.

"Perceptor asked me to find you," she said. "He needs your help."

"With what?"

"I found a cube of crushed metal with a spark inside," she explained. "I think he needs your helping saving it."

"A spark? Well, we'd best be off," he wasted no time in transforming and speeding down the hall back the way Flash Bang had come. Flash Bang followed, transforming into a small red sports car and overtaking the scientist with ease.

"You've got Mercury's speed, I see," he remarked. Flash Bang didn't reply.

Once at Perceptor's lab, the two returned to robot mode and entered. Perceptor had peeled away most of the metal, which left the dimly-glowing spark exposed.

"Ah, Wheeljack," the bot said. "I need a protoform, quickly." Wheeljack huffed and transformed again, heading from the nearest place where a protoform could be found. Flash Bang had no idea where they were stored nowadays, but remembered Gearshift telling her about when the cyber ninjas protected them.

"Flash Bang, whilst we wait for Wheeljack," Perceptor began, "care to tell me where you discovered this?"

"Um…" Flash Bang hesitated, "in the incinerator."

"And you were in there for what reason?" Perceptor pushed.

"Honestly, Perceptor, what do _you _think?" Flash Bang snapped harshly. Perceptor took the time to poke at his previous project for a moment.

"I think that if something happened to you, Mercury would be inconsolable," he replied.

"And how long have you been the expert on emotions?" she retorted, but neither of them said any more, initiating a long and awkward silence.

Wheeljack returned before too much longer with a fresh protoform in his arms. Perceptor quickly cleared some space for the body and had Wheeljack put it down. The two scientists quickly worked together, Wheeljack taking a hold of the spark using an electromagnetic beam whilst Perceptor made sure nothing in the cube would damage it as it was removed. Wheeljack took it with the utmost care, taking it as slowly as possible. Flash Bang felt her systems slow down to match the intensity of the situation; she was as eager to save the spark as the scientists were. It felt like time had stopped as Wheeljack finally placed the dimming spark into the fresh protoform.

For a moment, nothing happened… at all. Wheeljack and Perceptor both exchanged a glance that seemed to ask "did it work?" The protoform didn't seem to be accepting the spark, and Flash Bang's own spark sank as she began to wonder if her whole ordeal had been for nothing.

But then, suddenly, the spark surged. The room was filled with a brilliant blue light, and Flash Bang's spark leapt with glee as her optics adjusted and she saw the dying spark had grown into a powerful orb. The spark settled into the protoform's chest, and the entire thing began to glow, obscuring the grey body for a while. When the light finally faded, the grey protoform had morphed into a spark-blue mech with hollow wheels and a slim, speedy frame.

"Agent _Blurr?" _Wheeljack cried, completely stunned. "The cube was Agent _Blurr _from Intelligence?"

"You mean the ex-racer?" Flash Bang asked curiously. She's heard the name before, but not from Intelligence. Her femme creator had told her of Blurr being a racer.

"That's right," Perceptor replied. "He was sent to Earth some time ago, but word hasn't been heard from him in quite some time."

"Who's Blurr?" a weak voice asked. Everyone looked at Blurr, and the genuine confusion in his optics made it obvious he wasn't joking.

* * *

**Providing I get reviews, I'll have the next chapter up ASAP, so if you liked it, well, review! ****:P**


	2. Memory Wipe

**One day has passed and I've already got the second chapter up. Well, technically I could have upto chapter four posted tonight but I want to wait for _some _time between each chapter. Anyway, Blurr's gonna get more of a part in this chapter, I promise!**

**The only characters here that belong to me are Flash Bang, Mercury and Gearshift. Everyone/thing else is Hasbro.**

* * *

Chapter Two: Memory Wipe

"He's lost his memory?" Flash Bang asked incredulously as the two scientists poked in the blue mech's processor.

"It looks that way," Wheeljack admitted.

"So, what exactly can you do to help him?" she demanded.

"There's only so much we can do," Perceptor began. "If the processor is destroyed, the spark does contain a backup, but it only lasts for so long before the spark becomes too weak to hold onto it."

"So there's no way of getting it back?"

"No," both scientists said in unison.

"No way of jogging his memory?" she pressed. Wheeljack's shoulders sagged as he grew tired of the femme's questions.

"_No, _Flash Bang," he insisted, turning to her. "None that we know of."

"There may be one that you _don't _know of," Flash Bang added, pushing even further than she ought to have.

"Flash Bang, one more word out of you and you're out the door," Wheeljack snapped, finally at the end of his patience. Flash Bang sat down on a stool and became silent.

After a while, the two scientists reactivated the mech they were working on, and Flash Bang tried to peer round them to see what was happening.

"What is your name?" Wheeljack asked. The blue bot looked up at him, completely blank.

"I don't know," he said. Flash Bang couldn't help but notice that his speech was faster than any other bot's.

"What happened to you?" Perceptor asked.

"I don't know," the mech repeated. The two scientists continued to throw questions at him about who he was and what happened to him and so on and so forth. Flash Bang was bored out of her shell and also wanted to know why they were asking him questions if they'd already established he'd lost his memory.

"The question remains, Wheeljack, what are we to do with him now?" Perceptor asked his colleague. Wheeljack shook his cranial unit.

"I'm really not sure," he admitted. "Alert Intelligence, certainly. But for the time being…"

The two scientists looked from the mech to Flash Bang and then to each other.

"I see no problem in having Flash Bang watch him for a while," Perceptor said. "She seems keen."

"She's more than slaggin' keen, if you ask me," Wheeljack muttered. "I'll get him some armour."

Flash Bang was, by now, very excited. Was this to be the beginning of the adventure she wanted? She certainly hoped so. Wheeljack returned before long with a set of armour that had been built as a spare for Blurr and stored in the Ministry of Science for safekeeping. He and Perceptor helped a rather confused Blurr into the armour and made sure he knew his name.

"You're called _Blurr, _okay?" Wheeljack told him. Blurr nodded vaguely, but from then on answered when he was called by the two scientists.

"Flash Bang is going to take you home with her," Perceptor said. "She'll take care of you whilst we work out what to do with you."

"Okay…" Blurr said hesitantly. Flash Bang bounded up to him then.

"Hello," she said jovially. Blurr looked quite shocked at her tone but nonetheless returned the greeting.

"Flash Bang, please don't overload him with your overenthusiastic personality," Perceptor warned.

"If he was to be kept from personality, I'd leave him with you," she retorted harshly. "Come on, Blurr, I'll take you home."

Blurr was a little hesitant to follow, but did so after a small gesture from Wheeljack. He looked at the small red femme curiously, as if he'd never seen a femme before. Obviously, that was the case, and so Flash Bang couldn't blame his curiosity.

She was sick of it by the time they were at her home, however.

"Look, I'm a different shape to you because I'm a _femme, _okay?" Flash Bang hissed as they turned onto her street. Curfew had long passed whilst she was still waiting for Wheeljack and Perceptor to finish, and the two were free to walk the streets as they pleased.

"This is my home," she said as they came to a small sized building down a quiet but pleasant alley. "It's not much, but it's where I've always lived with my femme creator."

Blurr soon became distracted by the brightly coloured sign above the doorway saying "Mercury Deliveries, we deliver faster than the speed of light", but was soon dragged inside by Flash Bang.

"Mercury?" Flash Bang called out. She knew the femme would be furious with her for having been gone during curfew hours and she really didn't want to start an argument with her in front of Blurr.

"Flash Bang?" the purple and silver femme called out as she descended the stairs from the apartment above and entered the shop. "Where have you been? And why do you have a famous racer with you?" she added when she saw Blurr, who was looking around the shop with wonder.

"I've been with Perceptor and Wheeljack," Flash Bang began. "And I have Blurr with me because he was crushed into a cube and lost his memory, so Perceptor and Wheeljack put his spark in a new body and then gave him to me to look after."

"No-one in their right processor would give something, or some_one, _to you to look after," Mercury replied in unmasked disbelief. Flash Bang's entire body sagged and she moaned loudly to show her frustration.

"You have no faith in me, do you?"

"Well, very little," the older femme said, giving her sparkling a wink. "Now, you can put Blurr up in the spare room, I think there should be a berth in there under all the boxes. I'll lend you a servo."

The two femmes quickly arranged the spare room for Blurr. Well, Mercury did – Flash Bang spent most of the time drilling Blurr with questions he couldn't answer.

"So you haven't even the _slightest _idea what happened to you?"

"I wish you'd stop asking me that," Blurr replied. He was becoming a little more comfortable with Flash Bang, but was already starting to find her annoying.

"Flash, stop bombarding the poor bot with questions," Mercury chided. "If his memory is going to come back, it will do so in its own time."

"Do you think it will, Mercury?" Flash Bang asked. Mercury shrugged.

"I can't say for sure, sweetspark," she told her. "But leave him be for now, he needs to rest."

Flash Bang reluctantly left to go recharge, allowing Blurr some peace, but as she entered her own room, she made a promise to herself to reconstruct Blurr's memory, even if it took a lifetime.

The speedster didn't get much recharge; his rest was taken up more with pondering his unknown past. There'd be people who knew a lot of his history, but who would know about how he was crushed?

_Meanwhile_

"Longarm Prime, sir," Wheeljack said over the telecom.

"Wheeljack," the Prime greeted. "What can I do for you?"

"We've found and recovered Agent Blurr from a near-death state, but he has lost his memory," the scientist told him. "We're unsure of what to do with him, so he's been placed in the care of a femme called Flash Bang, who is also responsible for finding him."

"Agent Blurr?" Longarm asked, surprised and only just managing to cover the wave of fear that tore through him. "I thought he was still on Earth."

"I have no idea when he returned," Wheeljack admitted, "but he turned up in the incinerator, crushed into a cube and barley alive"

Longarm took a moment to ponder the situation, but then looked back at the monitor in his office and said to Wheeljack, "Have him come to my office as soon as possible; I'll take a look at him for myself."

"Very well, sir," Wheeljack replied. "I'll alert Flash Bang immediately."

"Thank you, Wheeljack," the Prime replied. The monitor went blank, and Longarm turned to look out of the floor-to-ceiling window behind him.

"So, Blurr survived, but his memory is gone," he said as he changed into his true form. Shockwave laced his claws together and pondered for a time. Had he had a mouth, a wicked sneer would have spread across it. "Next time, I'll be sure to rip out his spark before I hide the remains."

* * *

"Flash Bang, sweetspark?" Mercury called up the stairway to her sparkling.

"Yeah, Mercury?" the young femme called back.

"Wheeljack just called," she replied. "He says Longarm Prime wants to see Blurr as soon as possible."

"Longarm Prime?" Flash Bang asked. "No way am I gonna be allowed into Intelligence!"

"It's _Blurr _they want to see, Flash, not you," Mercury called back.

"But I'm _taking care_ of Blurr!" Flash Bang replied. "I need to stay with him at all times."

"He'll be fine inside the Intelligence building," Mercury retorted. "But I'm sure they'll let you stay with him."

"Fine," Flash Bang grunted as she went back into recharge. The conversation had woken Blurr up from the only recharge he'd have chance to have, as the mention of the name "Longarm Prime" sent his processor going. The name felt like it should mean something, but Blurr had no memories from before that day, and so tried to think nothing of it. But something in the back of his process just screamed at him, he just didn't know why or what it was shouting.

When Flash Bang awoke the next day, sometime around early afternoon, she was up and running to Blurr's room in seconds.

"Hey, Blurr," she whispered loudly through the door. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," was his simple reply.

"Is it okay if I come in?"

"I don't see why not," he answered. Flash Bang opened the door slowly and slipped inside. Blurr was sat cross lagged on the berth with his chin resting on top of both fists.

"Morning, Blurr," Flash Bang greeted cheerfully.

"Morning, Flash Bang," the speedster replied, his oddly fast speech blending the words together. He didn't seem willing to say more than necessary, however.

"Did you recharge okay?" Out of politeness, Blurr replied yes. "Longarm Prime would like to see you today."

"I know," Blurr said. "I heard you and your femme creator discussing it."

"Oh, we didn't wake you, did we?"

"No," Blurr lied.

"That's good," Flash Bang said. "I'll take you to the Intelligence building as soon as you're ready."

Flash Bang pottered downstairs and into the shop. Mercury was serving a customer when she entered, but took a brief moment to point to two containers of Energon she'd left out for Flash Bang and Blurr. Flash Bang went back upstairs with the Energon for Blurr, and went back down to drink her own.

"Yes, Cliffjumper, sir," Mercury was saying. "We'll have those new data pads delivered to you by tomorrow afternoon."

_Cliffjumper? _Flash Bang thought. _Doesn't he work in Intelligence?_

"Cliffjumper, sir?" Flash Bang called to him. The red mech turned to look at her.

"Can I help you, femme?" he asked. Mercury was giving her sparkling a warning look.

"You know Agent Blurr, right?" she asked him.

"Yes, why?" He was obviously eager to get going.

"Well… he's upstairs and he's lost his memory," she explained.

"Lost his memory?"

"Yes and I'm taking him to Intelligence to see Longarm Prime in a moment," she told him.

"I see," Cliffjumper replied. "I'll escort you both, if you'd like?" Flash Bang smiled.

"That would be brilliant, sir, thank you."

A little later, Blurr came speeding down the stairs, surprising himself with the speed his was famed for. He crashed into the wall opposite the stairs and fell back into a stack of creates.

"Mercury, I'm so sorry! I had no idea I could go fast! If anything's broken, I'll make up for it, I promise!" Mercury chuckled warmly.

"Not to worry, Blurr," she said. "Those creates were all empty."

Blurr brushed himself off and tried to restack the creates with little success. Cliffjumper came and gave him a hand.

"Hey, Blurr," he said. "Remember me?" Blurr looked up at the red mech.

"I don't, I'm afraid, sorry," Blurr told him. Cliffjumper chuckled slightly.

"Must have been a heck of a knock on the cranial unit you took," Cliffjumper replied. "I guess the memory loss also covers what happened to you?"

"Yes," Blurr replied. "I don't remember anything."

"Well, not to worry," Cliffjumper replied. "I'll take you and your friend to Longarm Prime."

Blurr shot a glance at Flash Bang. Something in his glance suggested he didn't want her to come, but he didn't say anything.

They were at the Intelligence building before long, and Cliffjumper took it on himself to explain to everyone what had happened to Blurr. There were more than a few curious stares at Blurr and a fair number of unwelcoming ones shot at Flash Bang. She could practically see it in their optics – what's a _delivery-bot _doing here? No-one asked, but she would have been happy to tell everyone how _she _had saved Agent Blurr.

"This is Longarm Prime's office," Cliffjumper said, gesturing to a door marked "Head of Intelligence". "And as much as much as you're going to hate it, Flash Bang, you're going to have to wait out here."

Flash Bang's shoulders sagged, but she stepped back and slumped down in a chair behind them anyway. She gave Blurr a small smile to give him some confidence as Cliffjumper knocked on the door. She heard Longarm Prime call out "who is it", to which Cliffjumper replied with his name and Blurr's.

"Blurr?" Longarm repeated. "Send him in." The door slid open and Cliffjumper gestured for Blurr to enter. The red mech stepped just inside the door after him and had a quick chat with the Prime about the data pad delivery before leaving to go to his own office.

Blurr looked about the office briefly, trying to find something familiar in the room. There was nothing and even the figure sat at the desk before him didn't rise any memories from the depths of the black abyss that was his past.

"Agent Blurr," Shockwave greeted the speedster. "Is it good to a familiar face again?" Blurr didn't pick up on the undertone of cruel sarcasm in his voice. Blurr didn't remember Shockwave; he thought this bot must be Longarm Prime and so showed no fear towards the Decepticon.

But Blurr didn't remember Decepticons either.

The mech stepped round the desk and tapped a claw against the cold flat metal as he leant against it. "You really don't remember anything, do you Blurr?" the mech asked. "Well, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Shockwave and, whether you remember the reason or not, I am your destruction." He raised his gun and fired.

Blurr was off in a second; using the speed he'd discovered he had earlier. The Decepticon charged at him, reaching out for him with his silver claws. The speedster dodged easily and aimed for the door. But Shockwave had quick reactions, too, and was there before him, cutting off his exit. Blurr hit the brakes quickly and scanned for another way out. The window seemed like the only choice, but he didn't really want to freefall a hundred or more storeys to the street below. But it did spark a plan.

Blurr dashed towards the window, not quite at full speed so as to allow Shockwave time to intercept him. Once the other mech was in his way, he doubled back and shot through the door. On the other side, he grabbed Flash Bang and tore out of the building with her.

"Damn!" the Decepticon hissed as he changed back to Longarm and went out into the corridor. "Where did they go?" he demanded to the perplexed looking Autobots looking at him.

"Um… that way, sir," one bot said, pointing down the corridor to the stairwell. Longarm took after them without an explanation.

"Blurr, what's going on?" Flash Bang demanded as she was pulled down the stairs. Blurr was terrified and everything he did was a mad frenzy. He didn't give her a reply until they were out of the building and back on the street.

"We have to get away," Blurr told her. Flash Bang missed what he said, but understood the urgency in his tone.

"Blurr, what happened?" Flash Bang demanded, trying and failing to pull herself free. Blurr didn't answer her, just towed her along towards nowhere in particular.

"It wasn't Longarm," Blurr began. "He was called Shockwave and he said that he was going to destroy me but I have no idea why. Why would he want to destroy me?" Flash Bang only narrowly managed to understand him.

"Shockwave?" she gasped. "Isn't he Megatron's first lieutenant?"

"Who?" Blurr asked. A sudden blast before them both stopped them dead in their tracks, Blurr coping easily with the sudden halt, but Flash Bang flying forwards. Blurr pulled her back by the servo and took off down another street.

"What was that?" Flash Bang yelled. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder and gasped as she saw a huge tank rolling up behind them. Blurr continued to pull Flash Bang down the street, but the young femme still stared at the mech behind them as he transformed into robot mode and opened fire on them.

She'd never forget the look of sheer glee at this vicious rampage in that single red optic.

"And here I was thinking this would be easy," the two bots heard him jeer as they ran. "But then again, Blurr, you've never been one to make a chase easy."

Blurr led Flash Bang through a twisting and turning tour of Cybertron's back streets and it wasn't long before she was sure they were lost. Shockwave managed to stay on their tail, however, and Flash Bang realised that she was slowing Blurr down.

"Mercury always told me that you were the fastest bot alive," she said to him. "But my mech creator could move faster than this. Blurr, I'm slowing you down."

"He'll kill you, too, I'd wager," Blurr replied, clocking onto what she was getting at.

"You're more important," she persisted.

"No bot is more important than another," he retorted, making up excuses he had no idea about. Everything suddenly stopped as Blurr came to a halt again. This time, rather than pull her back, Blurr span round and caught Flash Bang before she could go flying. She looked up at him with a confused expression.

"And not to mention, I owe you one for saving my own life." Blurr smiled at her. It was the first smile she'd seen him make and it didn't half make him look _handsome. _But there were things to worry about other than good-looking mechs. One glance at their surroundings told Flash Bang exactly where they were.

"My home is just around the corner," she told Blurr. "Mercury's delivery ship is kept in the hangar over there." She led Blurr to the aforementioned hangar and opened it up. The ship inside was small, but well kept and in good condition. Flash Bang ran a servo over the metal and then turned to Blurr.

"We can use it to get off Cybertron," she explained. "We can escape the planet and, _hopefully, _Shockwave won't follow us into space."

"But this ship isn't yours," Blurr pointed out. "Isn't that stealing?" Flash Bang shrugged.

"Only if you get caught." She opened up the hatch and led Blurr inside, following him in and sealing the door after her. She sat in front of the controls and began to prepare the ship for takeoff.

"Look out!" Blurr cried from behind her. She looked up and saw Shockwave advancing on them, cannon out and firing at them. Flash Bang activated the weapons on the ship and fired back, not doing a lot of damage, but the ship hadn't been designed for warfare. She managed to hit Shockwave directly in the chest, sending him flying into the far wall. Taking the opportunity, she set the ship off, moving forwards into the street and then upwards as soon as possible. The two were safely away before they knew it.

"Damn!" Shockwave cried out as he came back online only to see the ship had gone. "Mark my words, Blurr, I'll hunt you down and _annihilate _you if it's the last thing I do!"

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**Thanks go to Blackmoondragon1415 and Anodythe for putting the story on your alerts! And a special thank you to Anodythe for reviewing! In reply to your comment - I've got chapters planned for the entire Season 3 arc, so there's plenty to come!**


	3. The Buzz

**Oooh, the sheer amount of dialogue in relation to narrative burns me deep in this chapter. I like it, but don't expect it to stay as it is forever.**

**So, Blurr and Flash Bang have left Cybertron and are now drifting through space. Let's imagine some decent amount of time has passed since last chapter, for the sake of my sanity.**

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Chapter Three: The Buzz

"Are you okay, Blurr?" Flash Bang asked once the ship had broken through the atmosphere and emerged into the blanket of stars above. Blurr was sat in the cargo hold with his head in his servos. Flash Bang put the ship into autopilot and went to join him.

"I'm okay," he lied, and not very convincingly at that.

"You're shaking," Flash Bang pointed out. She put a servo on Blurr's shoulder which prompted him to look up at her.

"I'll be fine," he said.

"You need to relax, we're safe now," she soothed.

"But we have nowhere to _go," _Blurr pointed out. "And no supplies, either."

"We'll live, I'm sure," she promised. "We just need to find somewhere to land."

"And _where_ are we going to land?" Blurr demanded. All Flash Bang could really do was sit by Blurr for a time, just trying to let him know that she was there for him. She was determined to put his memories back together and she wasn't going to let a fright from Shockwave stop her.

Just then, the radar began to beep, calling the attention of the two bots. Flash Bang went to look and saw that it was picking up on some energy signatures on a nearby planet.

"Look at this, Blurr," she called. He stood up and came to see. As he looked, his optics narrowed slightly in thought.

"I… recognise those signatures," he said quietly. Flash Bang gasped excitedly.

"You do?" she asked. "Well then, let's land there!"

"But what if they're not on our side?" Blurr pointed out. Flash Bang knew Blurr had a point, but any Cybertronian energy signature was a good signature in her optics.

"Do you remember whose side you're on?" She asked Blurr who shook his head in reply. "You're an Autobot, like me. We're the good guys."

"And Shockwave?"

"He's a Decepticon," she explained. "He works for Megatron, but he hasn't been seen on Cybertron in quite some time."

"Who do we work for?"

"Ultra Magnus," she explained. "He's the big bot who's in charge of Cybertron." Flash Bang began to steer the ship towards the energy signatures and soon a small planet came into view. It was mostly blue, but there were large patches of green and streaks of white in the stratosphere.

"An organic planet?" Flash Bang wondered. Blurr looked at the little lump of rock.

"It's beautiful," he mused absently. "Those energy signatures are coming from that landmass over there."

Flash Bang began the decent through the atmosphere, the ship glowing as it passed through. Flash Bang began pressing buttons to prepare the landing gear as they lined up over a sprawling city, the buildings of which seemed like model versions of Cybertron's. They glimmered in the early morning sunlight and the sparkle reminded Flash Bang of Blurr's spark as it surged back into full force.

"The signatures are coming from there," Blurr said as he pointed to a large and rather run-down looking building. Flash Bang landed the little ship at the front of the building gently, being quite experienced with the ship. A sudden movement from Blurr made her jump, however, and the ship dropped down unceremoniously to the ground, creating a large series of cracks in the asphalt.

"Blurr?" she called out to the mech who was staring out the window intently. She had to wave a servo over his optics before he replied.

"I know them…" Blurr murmured. Flash Bang followed his gaze to a group of rather mismatched Autobots, all of which were staring at the ship with curiosity and mild confusion.

"You do?" Flash Bang asked. "Well, let's go say hello."

The two clambered out of the ship, not noticing the damage done to the ground beneath. Flash Bang began to approach the Autobots without hesitation, but Blurr hung back, unsure of himself.

"Hello," Flash Bang called out to the group. "Sorry for dropping in on you guys. My name's Flash Bang and the bot over there is-"

"Blurr?" a yellow mech interrupted. Blurr was walking towards them slowly, but the yellow bot charged up to him like you would an old friend you hadn't seen in a while.

"You're okay?" the yellow mech asked. "We were so worried about you after you fell through the space bridge."

"Space bridge?" Blurr repeated blankly. The yellow mech looked up at him with confusion.

"Blurr, it's me, Bumblebee," the yellow mech said. Blurr looked at him blankly for a moment, but then something in his processor snapped into place.

_Master Disaster had been in control of Blurr for some time when the yellow car appeared on the track one night. Obviously, Blurr had beaten him easily, but the little yellow car had been persistent and had returned for a rematch. Master Disaster had used that slagging remote to make Blurr attack the car, only for it to transform into a fellow Autobot of all things! Blurr had thought he was saved, but the mech only wanted to join the races._

_But the little mech brought a few surprises along. Some little organic found and took the remote from Master Disaster, freeing Blurr. After that, a Decepticon appeared and started tearing up the race track. The little organic had turned the remote on him, saving both her and her Autobot friend. Unfortunately, the little creature dropped the remote and the Decepticon came under his own control again. Blurr owed the organic and the mech for freeing him and, even so, he was obliged to fight a Decepticon. Blurr leapt from a bridge as the yellow mech passed beneath and daringly shot out at the Decepticon. The 'con dodged and fled, whilst Blurr landed back on the track and sped to freedom._

_Some time later, Blurr intercepted a communication between Megatron and an agent on Cybertron saying that the Autobot Bulkhead would be key in building a space bridge that Megatron required for his plans. As Blurr had journeyed to stop Megatron, the yellow mech from the races attacked him! And after he'd saved him, too!_

_Though he'd been annoyed at the yellow mech, he had explained the situation to his team and the group followed Blurr to Megatron's base in order to rescue Bulkhead. But the space bridge was nearing completion and, after being glued to two of Starscream's clones with a peculiar grey substance from a Decepticon Blurr had never seen before, he was dragged through the light and into an unknown destination in space._

"You're the yellow mech!" Blurr cried out suddenly. "The one from Master Disaster's races!"

Flash Bang was stunned. This yellow mech had jogged a memory! But Flash Bang had had every intention of restoring the first one herself. Dejected, Flash Bang stepped back from the two bots as they chatted.

"What happened to you?" an enormous green Autobot asked. "When you went through the space bridge the coordinates hadn't been set." Blurr just shook his head apologetically.

"I don't remember," he told them simply. Flash Bang stepped in again.

"Blurr lost his memory after being compacted into a cube a few solar cycles ago," she explained. She told the group of what had happened to Blurr, receiving stunned expressions in return.

"Someone tried to _kill_ you?" Bumblebee asked, dumbfounded. Blurr nodded.

"That's what we think," he explained. "Unless I _fell_ in a compactor?" He turned to Flash Bang as he said this, but the femme just shrugged.

"It's infinitely more interesting to think someone tried to murder you," she said. Bumblebee gave the femme a funny look.

"So, who are _you?" _he asked.

"I said earlier, didn't I? My name's Flash Bang," she repeated. The optics of a cycleformer stood behind Bumblebee widened.

"Do you mean to say that you are Gearshift's sparkling?" he asked, stepping towards her.

"Um, yes, I am," she replied hesitantly.

"I trained alongside him under Master Yoketron," he explained. "He was a good mech."

"Thank you," Flash Bang said quietly.

"My name is Prowl," the motorcycle said.

"Bulkhead," added the huge green one.

"I'm Ratchet," the old red and white one said.

"And my name is Optimus Prime," said the tall red and blue one. "I'm the leader of this team."

"Don't forget me!" another voice came. Flash Bang and Blurr looked down at the ground to see a small organic creature stood looking up at them. "My name's Sari," it said.

"What in Primus are you?" Flash Bang demanded. The organic frowned slightly.

"I'm a human," she said. "You know, this planet's _dominant species!"_

"I think I remember you, too," Blurr said. "But weren't you shorter?"

"I had an AllSpark-related growth spurt," she said, shrugging.

"Sari's been our constant companion since we came back online on this planet," Optimus Prime explained. "We were in stasis for fifty Earth stellar cycles before making ourselves known."

"Earth?" Flash Bang asked. "Is that the name of this planet?"

"Yep," Sari said. "And I've been helping the Autobots fit in since they came."

"Anyway," Optimus said. "What brings you to Earth?"

"I was attacked by Shockwave," Blurr explained.

"Shockwave?" the group said together.

"He's a Decepticon spy posing as Longarm Prime!" Bumblebee explained when Blurr's expression made it obvious he was confused.

"He is?" Blurr asked. "But he's the head of Autobot Intelligence!"

"Exactly!" Bumblebee cried. "That's why we really need to get word to Cybertron and warn them!"

"Is there a long distance communicator on your ship, Flash Bang?" Optimus asked the femme. She shook her cranial unit.

"There is, but it hasn't worked in stellar cycles," she told him.

"So much for that idea, then," Ratchet moaned.

"Let's all go inside," Optimus suggested, changing the subject. "We've all had a rather trying night and we need to set our guests up with somewhere to stay." He shot a peculiar glance at Bulkhead before leading the way inside.

The plant was enormous on the inside and two spare rooms were quickly set up for the two new arrivals. Sari said goodbye to the Autobots and went home with her father, who had been inside the base when Flash Bang and Blurr had landed. Flash Bang and Blurr had spent the day talking with Optimus Prime and his team, getting the lowdown on Earth and how best to behave around the humans. After Blurr tripped over a cable in Ratchet's medical bay and caused a power cut, it was decided that both he and Flash Bang should probably stay at the base for a few days.

"What a day," Flash Bang said absently. Both she and Blurr were sat in the rec room, relaxing for a while whilst the other Autobots got on with various tasks.

"You're telling me," Blurr said. "I don't remember anything quite as hectic as this. Even Master Disaster's races were more organised."

"You can't exactly organise a last minute escape, you know," Flash Bang hissed. "Mercury is going to blow a circuit when she sees the ship's gone."

"Are… are you okay, Flash Bang?" Blurr asked the femme tentatively.

"What do you think, Blurr?" she snapped, suddenly. "I've been chased away from the only home I've ever known and set off on what I thought would be an amazing adventure to restore your memory, but now some Bumble-bot is doing it for me!"

"Bumblebee didn't restore me entire memory," he pointed out. "And it is way too much for one bot to do – restoring an entire lifetime of memories."

"Are you saying I can't do it on my own?"

"I'm saying you _shouldn't," _Blurr argued. "I may have lost my memory, but even I know that I'd be in over my cranial unit doing such a thing alone."

"Humph," was all she said in reply.

Just then, Bumblebee and Optimus walked in.

"I need you on monitor duty tonight, Bumblebee," the Prime was saying.

"What? But that's so _lame!" _Bumblebee moaned in reply. "Can't someone else do it? I have to play Ninja Gladiator!"

"Everyone else is busy with _worthwhile _projects, Bumblebee," Optimus replied. "Now, I've got a patrol to do." The Prime transformed and drove out the building. Bumblebee stared absently at the monitors for a moment before turning to Flash Bang and Blurr.

"You guys won't tattletale on me if I play Ninja Gladiator, will you?" he asked them. The two shot a glance at each other and then shrugged. They had no idea what he was on about.

Bumblebee jumped over the concrete sofa and began setting up the games console, grabbing a controller and then dropping himself into place between Blurr and Flash Bang. Both bots shuffled sideways to give him some elbow room. Bumblebee started up the game and was away in no time, pushing buttons and controlling the character on screen.

"Video games?" Flash Bang asked curiously.

"This is Earth entertainment?" Blurr asked.

"Yep," Bumblebee said, only giving it half a thought. "And _I _am the best player around."

Flash Bang watched the game eagerly for a time, but soon became bored when she realised Bumblebee's expertise on the game made it impossible for him to get hit, let alone loose a match. She stood up and looked over at Blurr.

"I'm going to go check out my room," she said to him. "Are you gonna stay here?"

"No, I'll come, too," Blurr said, standing up quickly and zooming over to Flash Bang's side.

"See ya later, Zippy," Bumblebee teased. Blurr turned to face him, arms crossed.

"How many times do I have to tell you that the name's not "Zippy"?" he complained. Bumblebee just laughed and continued to play his game, mumbling something about it "lacking a certain creativity".

As the two walked along the corridor, looking into the different rooms and surprised to see one with an enormous tree growing through it, the sky outside darkened as night drew in. Thick black clouds drifted in the way of the stars as rain began to pour, heavily battering the windows in a stormy barrage. Neither Flash Bang nor Blurr had seen rain before. Well, Blurr probably had but didn't remember. Blurr took great interest in watching the puddles grow and ripple as more and more rain fell, but his curiosity turned to surprise when a bolt of lightning tore through the sky.

"What was _that?" _he cried. Flash Bang jumped as a tremendous boom rattled the windows.

"That is thunder and lightning," a voice said behind them. The two turned to see Prowl coming out of the room with the tree. "It's natural on this planet."

"And the liquid?" Flash Bang asked.

"Just rain," Prowl explained. "It won't hurt you if you go out in it."

"I see," Flash Bang said, continuing to look out of the window curiously. Blurr watched, too, and his processor wandered over the things he had yet to remember about both this planet and his home.

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**Well, there you go. Blackmoondragon1415, thank you! And I hope this chapter answers your question. Also thank you to Matron for adding the story to your alerts!**

**Keep reviewing! :D**


	4. The Sting

**So, here's the next chapter. We're gonna see a little more action here than we did in the last chapter, and we're also going to join up with the events of the series properly.**

**Enjoy!**

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Chapter Four: The Sting

"Bumblebee, when I put you on monitor duty, I didn't mean _this _monitor," Optimus Prime said as he switched off the TV.

"But there hasn't been so much as a Decepticon blip for a decacycle! Besides, if I'm playing Ninja Gladiator at least I'm getting valuable combat training," Bumblebee protested.

As the two argued, the computers that Bumblebee _should _have been watching began to go off, declaring a Cybertronian energy signature was close by.

"Stay on the monitor while the rest of us investigate," Optimus said. "And keep an optic on Blurr and Flash Bang, okay? The last thing we want is for two new Autobots to be getting into trouble." The Prime drove out, leaving Bumblebee alone once more.

"You didn't say _which _monitor," Bumblebee said to himself as he returned to his game.

Blurr was bored. And a bored speedster is a dangerous thing, even if they only have part of their memory. Flash Bang was staring intently out of the window at the rain… still… leaving Blurr to do what he wanted. But there wasn't _anything _to do!

Blurr stood up and began to head towards the rec room to see what Bumblebee was up to. He'd grown used to the thunder by now and wasn't surprised every time it struck. But there _was_ something down the dimly lit corridor that made him jump.

"_Bumblebot," _came a voice from the shadows. Blurr froze at the sound. The voice sounded odd, broken, as if everything had been torn out of its owner and what was left was an empty shell struggling to carry on. It made Blurr shiver.

"Who's there?" he called out, fully aware the voice hadn't been calling to him. If Bumblebee was in danger, then Blurr had to help.

"_Bumblebot," _the voice called again. Blurr saw something move to his left. He dashed to where he saw the movement and grabbed a hold of something.

"Let Wasp go!" the thing shouted. "Wasp not here for _you!" _

"Wasp?" Blurr repeated as something else fell into place in his processor. "You were the one convicted of being a Decepticon spy!"

"Wasp never go back to stockade!" the green bot insisted.

"You won't be going back, Wasp," Blurr said. "I myself found the evidence showing you were innocent…" But Blurr couldn't remember if he'd told anyone and the whole memory loss thing would raise a few questions if he started telling people what he knew.

"Wasp doesn't believe you!" Wasp hissed. "Wasp spent solar cycles being chased across galaxy to get revenge on the bot that ruined Wasp's life!"

"Blurr?" Flash Bang called, running down the hall to see what was going on. "Primus! Is that _Wasp?"_

"Yes, Flash Bang, but he's-" Blurr didn't have time to explain, as Flash Bang's arrival had given the green bot chance to slip free of Blurr's grip. Wasp raised a stinger at Blurr, but Flash Bang got there first with a flash bang charge.

Unfortunately, she didn't think about Blurr's susceptibility to the charge.

Blurr hit the floor with his servos over his audio receptors and his optics tightly shut. Wasp had gone and the charge had gone off during a clap of thunder, masking the noise to anyone who hadn't been in the corridor.

When Blurr could see again, it was pitch black and all he could see was Flash Bang's optics.

"Blurr, I'm so sorry!" she cried as she helped him up. "Wasp is a convicted spy, you see and-"

"He's _innocent, _Flash Bang," Blurr told her. "I remember finding the evidence that said so."

"You've remembered something else?" Flash Bang asked, disappointed. "Am I _ever _going to restore one of your memories?"

"That really isn't important right now," Blurr chided her.

Another clap of thunder distracted them for a moment, tearing their optics from each other and to the window. The two heard a terrified yelp from the rec room and a crash as something heavy fell to the floor.

"What was that?" Flash Bang asked. Blurr's optics widened.

"Bumblebee!"

The two ran into the rec room, expecting to find Bumblebee fighting off Wasp. Instead, they saw Bumblebee standing over Wasp, who was laid out unconscious on the floor behind the sofa.

"Bumblebee?" Blurr asked. "What happened? Are you okay? Wasp evaded us and came to get you."

"Bumble- I mean – _Wasp _attacked me, but I managed to defeat him," Bumblebee told them. Something didn't seem right to the two bots, but neither one could put their digit on it.

"We ought to put him somewhere," Blurr said as he moved forwards. "Flash Bang, will you contact Prime and tell him to come back?"

"Sure," Flash Bang said as she activated her comlink.

"Help me with this, will you, Bumblebee?" Blurr asked as he began to pick up Wasp. Bumblebee took his support servos and helped Blurr carry him to Ratchet's med bay.

"He's coming back online," Ratchet said as the group of Autobots watched the green mech wake up.

"Wasp put up fight, but Bumblebot _way _tougher," a familiar voice said. The green mech looked up to see a yellow one stood before him, and suddenly everything became horribly clear.

"That's not me! Wasp took my body, I'm really Bumblebee!" he cried to the group.

"Same crazy Wasp, but he's _way_ uglier than I remember," Bulkhead declared.

"Poor Wasp," the Bumblebee before him said. "He's clearly a danger to himself and all those around him."

Ratchet reluctantly took out a pair of stasis cuffs, but the green mech panicked and shot at them, destroying them completely. He continued to blast and eventually shot at the lights above, plunging the base into darkness once more. He took his chance and fled, and just in time to avoid Sentinel Prime and Jazz's arrival.

The Autobots transformed and chased after him, Blurr hesitating a moment. Flash Bang looked back at him as the others drove out.

"What's wrong, Blurr?" she asked him.

"I don't remember how to transform," he admitted. Flash Bang went back to robot mode.

"Let's go on support servo, then," she offered.

Outside, a heated argument was going on between Optimus and another bot. A tall blue and orange mech with an oversized chin was shouting about a "sit rep", after which a white one next to him explained he meant a "situation report". The argument turned to Wasp's innocence, but Blurr wasn't listening to the conversation, he was more interested in the newcomers.

"Sentinel Prime?" Blurr wondered.

"Uhg, another memory not jogged by me?" Flash Bang moaned.

"I've already told you to not get so caught up in the whole thing, Flash Bang," he reminded her. "But, yes, another memory."

"What this time?" Flash Bang asked, still annoyed. Blurr was silent for a moment, as if reluctant to tell her.

"Every stellar cycle I spent as an Autobot Intelligence agent until I got to Earth the first time," Blurr said after a while.

"_What?" _Flash Bang cried out incredulously. "That's most of your _life!" _

"Well I'm _sorry," _Blurr spat. "It's not my fault that you're so slagging _stubborn _that you refuse to acknowledge the fact that you can't do _anything _for me on your own!"Flash Bang was about to shout something back at him, but they were distracted by all the Autobots suddenly leaving, save for Bumblebee.

"I'm going back inside," Blurr said, more than a hint of anger in his voice. Flash Bang watched him go and followed him in after a moment, but went straight to her own room.

Wasp had instantly taken a liking to Bumblebee's video game system, though he wasn't very good at this Ninja Gladiator game that had been in it when he'd started it up. He lost every single match, but was almost as persistent as the real Bumblebee, and continued on playing anyway. Blurr was sat in his room, cross legged on the berth and thinking about everything that had happened that day.

_She saved my life once, _he thought, _and I saved her from Shockwave. But then she saved us both by stealing her femme creator's ship. I really do appreciate all that she's done for me in just two solar cycles, but she's so slagging _stubborn _about the whole memory thing!_

Blurr eventually came to the conclusion that he had overreacted earlier when he had snapped at Flash Bang. It wasn't right; she was young and eager to help him. She'd longed for an adventure and now that she'd found one, bots she didn't even know were doing it for her! Blurr decided to apologise.

He stepped out of his room and into the corridor, looking up and down to see if anyone was there. His optics fell on the glow from the TV in the rec room, which brought Bumblebee's presence to his attention. Even so, he continued to Flash Bang's room.

Knocking on the door, he called out, "Flash Bang?" The femme didn't reply, so Blurr tried again. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," she moaned. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to come in," Blurr said. "I want to apologise." He heard the femme get up from her berth and come over to the door, which slid open, revealing her slim red form.

"Apologise?" she asked suspiciously. Blurr nodded.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you," he said. "You're only trying to help me and I've been brushing you off." Flash Bang didn't say anything for a moment.

"It's… okay," she replied. "I stress everyone out, so I'm used to people yelling at me." She smiled up at Blurr, who smiled back.

"Didn't you two leave to find Bumble- I mean, Wasp?" someone said behind Blurr. They both looked around to see Bumblebee looking at them warily.

"We really oughtn't to be going anywhere on our own until we're more familiar with this city," Flash Bang told him.

"Fair enough," Bumblebee replied, still cautious. "What's the deal with Wasp at the cycle, anyway?" The two bots frowned slightly.

"You should know better than we do," Blurr said, not bothering to hide the suspicion in his voice.

"I've got monitors to watch," Bumblebee replied, suddenly changing the subject without even a hint of subtlety. Blurr turned to Flash Bang as the yellow mech left and returned to the rec room.

"Something is very wrong here," the blue mech murmured.

"You're telling me," Flash Bang said. "What's he up to now?"

The two bots quietly approached the rec room, peering round the corner to get a look at Bumblebee. He wasn't sat at the sofa playing his video games like they had expected, instead he was sat at one of the monitors with his back to the two. At first, Blurr and Flash Bang assumed he was doing what Prime had told him to do earlier, but then Blurr zoomed in on the screen with his binocular-like optics.

"He's going through his own files," Blurr whispered to Flash Bang.

"Why would he do _that?" _Flash Bang asked. A bleeping tone from the TV dragged her attention from Bumblebee. The screen was flashing up with "Game Over, You Lose", which struck Flash Bang as odd. Hadn't Bumblebee declared earlier that he was "the best player around"?

"We ought to alert Prime that something's up," Flash Bang suggested. "The Wasp that escaped must have been telling the truth when he said that their bodies had been switched."

"That would explain why Bumblebee's going through his own files, but what if he's just got a bug?" Blurr pondered.

"Are you sure about _anything?" _Flash Bang groaned.

"To be honest, no," Blurr replied. Flash Bang was about to reply with a rather snarky comment when something Bumblebee said caught her attention.

"Wasp could get used to being Bumblebot," he said in that fractured voice Blurr had heard before.

"It _is _Wasp!" Blurr exclaimed. "We have to do something."

"I'll alert Prime," Flash Bang told Blurr. "You try and grab him."

Blurr crouched down in the cover of the shadows. Most of the lights had been fixed, but a handy few had been left, giving Blurr plenty darkness to take cover in.

"Prime, this is Flash Bang, come in," Flash Bang said over her comlink.

"_I'm having a little trouble right now," _the Prime replied. Flash Bang heard a loud bang as Optimus tackled something heavy.

"It's important," Flash Bang replied. "It's about Bumblebee-" She was cut off by someone shouting at Optimus, prompting him to shut off his comlink.

"Slag it," Flash Bang moaned. She looked back into the rec room to see what was happening with Blurr. He was still in the cover of the shadows, with Wasp still eagerly reading the monitor. Blurr was nearly on him and was preparing to leap, but then he tripped on a cable and went tumbling forwards.

"What's this?" Wasp cried as he spun round. "Trying to sneak up on Wasp, were you?"

Wasp leapt from his seat and took off down a corridor on the other side of the rec room. Blurr got on all fours, a little dazed, before scanning for where the impostor had gone.

"Come and get Wasp, speedy bot," the mech taunted. Blurr growled and stood, speeding straight at Wasp without thinking. He was quickly enveloped in the dark of the corridor, and didn't realise the trap until he was in it. Wasp stood at the end of the corridor, only dimly visible to Blurr, but he continued forward. At the last second, Wasp dodged, and Blurr went flying into the tiny storeroom behind him.

"Wasp got you now, speedy bot," Wasp said as he closed the door behind Blurr. "And now for your little femme friend."

"Touch her and you die, Wasp!" Blurr shouted, battering on the door. He heard Wasp walk away from the door and before long there was silence. After a moment or two, he heard a terrified yelp and a "get off me!" The next thing he knew, the door opened again for a split second as Flash Bang was shoved inside.

"Blurr, are you okay?" Flash Bang asked him worriedly. The storeroom was tiny, barely big enough for the two of them. Flash Bang felt her faceplates heat up as she felt her chassis pressed against Blurr's.

"I'm okay," he said. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," Flash Bang said. "Just shot at me."

"I don't like this…" Blurr moaned quietly.

"Well I don't like having a crazy-bot on the loose in an Autobot base, either," Flash Bang replied.

"No, Flash," Blurr said. "I mean I don't like being stuck like this. Enclosed spaces remind me of…" Blurr didn't finish, and not because he didn't want to upset Flash Bang with the news that another memory had surfaced.

"Blurr, what is it?" she asked him as he stared into space blankly.

"Let me out!" he yelled suddenly. "I don't want to be crushed! I need to get out! I can't die here, I _won't _die here! Let me out, let me out, let me out!"

"Crushed?" Flash Bang asked, dumbfounded. "Blurr, you're not getting crushed, you're in a storeroom!"

"He wants me dead; he's going to kill me!" Blurr continued.

"Who, Blurr? Who wants you dead?" she asked.

"I… don't know," Blurr replied. "But I can't stay in here! The compactor! Those walls, those thick metal walls nearly killed me once, they won't finish me now!" Blurr's engine started revving loudly as he tried to push his way out, servos flat against the door as his wheeled support servos went wild.

"Blurr, stop!" Flash Bang shouted. "You're not going anywhere shoving against the door like that!"

"_I don't want to die!"_ he persisted, not listening to a word the femme was saying.

"Oh, that is _it!" _Flash Bang moaned. "I really don't want to do this in such an enclosed space, but if I have to…"

Flash Bang threw down a charge and, for the first time, felt the effects of her own weapon as Blurr _finally _shut up… and fell to the floor in agony.

"All right, you caught Wasp, but Wasp was good bot once, until Bumblebot ruined Wasp's life!" Wasp yelled as he was revealed.

Blurr was still freaking out about the small space, but Flash Bang was happy that he hadn't started up again with the fearful rants and panicked escape attempts. As soon as she'd heard the Autobots return, however, she had taken to calling out, not that anyone had heard. After a while, she heard a number of zaps and the sound of a number of bots running outside.

"They've gone again," Flash Bang sighed, dropping her cranial unit against the door.

"Need to get out…" Blurr moaned. He was curled up in a ball on the floor, trying to make his body smaller than it already was to give himself the illusion of there being more room.

"Why are you so scared?" she asked him, going for the soft approach rather than her usual demanding shrieks.

Blurr looked up at her, and she gasped at the genuine fear in his optics.

"I remember being crushed."

"Blurr? Flash Bang?" they heard the Autobots call out just then. Flash Bang turned back to the door and began pounding on it.

"We're in here! Help!" she yelled. The door was unlocked and opened, spilling light into the dark space and allowing Blurr to shoot out in the blur he was famed for.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Blurr huffed as he dropped to his knees out in the light. The Autobots looked down at the frenzied speedster.

"How long were you two in there?" Prowl asked.

"Almost all night," Flash Bang said. "Blurr's been freaking out because it reminded him of when he was crushed."

Ratchet helped the speedster to his support servos. "Let's get him to his room," the old medic suggested. "He's spooked and needs to calm down."

Flash Bang followed Ratchet into Blurr's room and helped him set the bot down. Ratchet took out one of his many tools and began to scan Blurr's processor.

"His processor is working overtime," Ratchet declared. "The sudden amount of memories he's been gaining is doing a number on him."

"What can you do for him?" Flash Bang asked worriedly.

"Nothing," Ratchet replied. "He just needs to take it easy for a few solar cycles."

"But-" Flash Bang began to protest.

"Who's the medic here?" Ratchet snapped. Flash Bang shrank back and didn't say any more. Ratchet grumbled something incoherent and left.

"Flash?" Blurr called weakly.

"What is it, Blurr?" she asked him, putting a servo to his faceplate.

"Thank you," he replied.

"What for?" Flash Bang asked curiously.

"For saving me from the incinerator," Blurr answered.

"That was two solar cycles ago, Blurr," she replied softly.

"I know," Blurr said. "But I never did say thank you."

Flash Bang smiled and bid goodnight to the speedster, closing the door and heading to her own room to rest.

* * *

**I like this chapter, it adds a little more emotion to the whole thing :P I hope you all enjoyed it! And Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it!**


	5. Speed Demon

**I don't think I like this chapter. At all. But maybe a re-read or two will make me warm up to it. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it more than me! :D**

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Chapter Five: Speed Demon

"I think it's about time you two got out and saw the city," Optimus declared a few weeks after Wasp's attack. "You've both been stuck in here for almost two months now and have yet to see any of Detroit."

"Brilliant!" Flash Bang cried out, clapping her servos together excitedly. "I've been itching to get outside and stretch my support servos for ages." Blurr grinned happily at the news and shook out his own legs.

"Me too," he said. "Are we getting a guided tour?" he chuckled.

Blurr's confidence was growing more and more as he gained memories, but he still seemed a little shaken from remembering being crushed. Flash Bang seemed to have eased off the zealous demand to be the one to restore Blurr's memory, but, then again, he had most of it back.

Well, except everything between arriving to Earth and meeting Bumblebee before being sucked through the space bridge and then from that to being crushed in the compacting walls.

"Bumblebee and Bulkhead will show you around," Optimus explained. "Stay with them and don't worry about the humans – they know about us and are happy for us to wander around the city, provided we don't damage anything."

Bumblebee and Bulkhead entered then, bickering noisily about something. Flash Bang and Blurr looked over at them as they entered and laughed when they realised they were arguing about Bulkhead's intelligence.

"So what if I'm the best in the galaxy at space bridge technology?" Bulkhead said. "Didn't I ever tell you it was my lifelong passion when we were in boot camp?"

"No," Bumblebee retorted. "You just said you lived on an Energon farm!"

"Alright, you two," Optimus said, stopping the argument. "You guys are taking Blurr and Flash Bang into the city today, okay?"

"We know," Bumblebee replied. "Hey, Zippy, wanna go back to Master Disaster's old race track?"

"That may not be such a bad idea, Bee," Blurr replied. "Maybe it'll jog some more memories?"

"We won't know until we try," Flash Bang said, trying to reinstate her unofficial position as "Blurr's Memory Collector".

"Let's get going, then," Bulkhead said, transforming to vehicle mode. "But first, we've got to pick up Sari from Sumdac Tower, she's coming, too."

The four Autobots set out across the city, Blurr having been re-taught how to transform by Flash Bang. Flash Bang and Blurr drove side by side behind Bulkhead and Bumblebee, taking in the sites and asking questions about the humans. Their curiosity seemed relentless, but Bumblebee could talk anyone into a stupor and had no problems with the questions.

"Organics are _fine," _Bumblebee told them. "They're pretty cool, really, just kinda small and easy to get under support servo."

"And anything you've been told about them by Sentinel is complete slag," Bulkhead added.

"Sentinel Prime was always one for exaggerating, as I remember," Blurr said. Flash Bang chuckled.

"He's obsessed with his own ego," she said. "I've never heard of him being modest."

Flash Bang had scanned a Smart Car Coupé before setting out. It had been parked by the plant and it had actually been on Blurr's suggestion that she scanned it. She liked the car, it was small and sleek, just like her, and driving as a human-made car made her feel more comfortable driving around on the human-owned planet.

"It suits you," Blurr said during a moment of silence as Sumdac Tower came into view.

"Huh?" Flash Bang said, not realising what he meant.

"The new vehicle mode," Blurr clarified. "It suits you."

Flash Bang's faceplate heated up. "Thank you, Blurr," she replied; glad she was in her vehicle mode so Blurr wouldn't see her faceplates darken by a few shades of red.

Sumdac Tower was a wondrous sight in the midmorning sunlight. The windows glittered like sparkling diamonds and the metal shone dazzlingly. Flash Bang was reminded of the towering spires back on Cybertron and for a moment was filed with homesickness. She slowed down slightly as the three mechs drove on at their current speed. Only Blurr noticed the femme had fallen back.

"Flash, are you okay?" Blurr asked.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, Blurr, I'm fine," she lied. Blurr would have pursued the matter, but the four had arrived at Sumdac Tower and were pulling into the car park before he could.

Sari was sat on a wall surrounding a small flowerbed as she waited for them to arrive, dressed in her usually orange and cream outfit. The autumn air had prompted her to don a scarf in addition to her standard garb. As soon as she saw the bright yellow of Bumblebee and the dark green of Bulkhead, a huge smile spread across her face. She stood up and came bounding over towards her Autobot friends, both of whom transformed. Flash Bang and Blurr followed suit, and for the first time the humans of Detroit saw the two new Autobots.

"Look, Mommy, a lady one!" a little girl squealed to her mother. Flash Bang looked down at the pavement by the Tower and saw a little blond-haired girl clinging to her mother's hand and pointing excitedly at Flash Bang. The femme was a little unsure of how to react to the child, but the mother smiled and said, "Wow, look at that," before dragging her little girl down the road. The child continued to look over her shoulder at Flash Bang, however, which resulted in her tripping over her mother's feet and falling to her knees. As Flash Bang watched the mother's reaction – half worried, half irritated – she couldn't help but remember when she'd been just a little sparkling in similar situations with Mercury. Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Sari all laughed at the scene.

"You'll get that a lot," Bulkhead chuckled.

After greeting Sari, the four transformed back to vehicle mode and began their "tour" of Detroit. Blurr felt excited as he saw places he recognised, including Sumdac Tower. They drove for hours and hours, telling their new buddies about their past adventures, and even Blurr told a tale or two about his time on Earth. After seeing the city, Bumblebee led the way to Master Disaster's old racetrack.

"This is it," Bumblebee said. Blurr was the first to revert to robot mode, after which he began to scan the area. It seemed so clear to him now, and he felt peculiar knowing there was a time (however brief) when he couldn't remember it. Or anything for that matter. But no matter how hard he looked at the track, it wasn't going to bring back the rest of his missing memories, especially not the important ones like who tried to kill him.

"I still don't get why Shockwave wants me dead," Blurr complained to Flash Bang. "He only taunted me over the fact that I _don't _remember."

"He's a big jerk," Bulkhead told Blurr. "He tricked Bumblebee into thinking Wasp was the spy, which is why he ended up in the stockade."

Blurr didn't say anymore, he just stood and mused. Nothing really happened for a time, the Autobots just stood together and thought about everything, running it through their processors and turning it around in every possible direction. The answer was in what Blurr already knew, he just didn't realise.

"At least you're not a wobbly pile of uncertainty anymore," Flash Bang said after a while, shrugging as if bored.

"It's beginning to get dark," Sari said, looking at the sky. "We ought to get back."

Bulkhead, being the responsible one out of all those present, agreed, and went to turn to vehicle mode. Bumblebee followed suit, as did Flash Bang, but the sound of footsteps on a bridge above them diverted Blurr's attention.

"Mum, I'm fine," a feminine voice said. "I got to Detroit this morning, well, morning here."

Blurr looked up at the bridge, his optics falling on a tawny-haired human woman. She was walking along the bridge with a confidant strut that seemed dampened by the fact that she had no idea where she was going. She was holding her mobile phone to her ear, having a loud conversation with whoever was on the other end of the line. She seemed a little irritated at the person she was speaking to, but forced a positive tone into her voice.

"I'll be fine, Mum," she said. "I've come here to study, not have a good time... I'm on my way to the apartment I'm renting now, and my stuff's being taken there by some guys from the airport... He wasn't a taxi driver, _that's _why I didn't get a lift… I was here _last year, _too, Mum, I know the city… Okay, I don't know this bit, but I didn't have a reason to come this way last year, I was staying on campus."

Blurr couldn't help but be curious, as the voice seemed familiar. He began to walk towards the bridge – the opposite way to where the others were going.

"Blurr, where are you going?" Flash Bang asked, driving in front of him.

"I just want to check something out," he explained as he climbed up the bridge supports. He looked over the top and saw the woman coming towards him. Seeing a giant robot pop up out of nowhere, however, tends to shock unsuspecting humans.

"_Whoa!" _the woman shrieked, dropping her phone, which smashed to pieces against the hard concrete. Blurr was equally surprised by her reaction and let go of the bridge, falling back to the road below. Blurr's impact against the road sent cracks tearing through it and an agonising pain through his chassis.

"That hurt," he moaned as he was pulled back up by Bulkhead. After getting back to his feet, he looked up at the bridge. The woman was looking over the railing at the four bots below, completely gob smacked. She'd seen the Autobots when she was in Detroit the year before, but she hadn't been _on here own _around them.

"Um… are you okay?" she called down to Blurr. Blurr leant backwards, trying to stretch out his backbone infrastructure.

"It's not the worst I've been through recently," he replied. He looked at the woman, pondering the reason behind his own curiosity. Then it hit him.

_Blurr had managed to stay undercover successfully so far, but he knew he could easily loose his cover if he didn't remain vigilant. As he drove along a bridge one night, something flying overhead caught his attention. He transformed to robot mode to get a better look at it, but he saw it was only a human plane. He stood where he was for a moment, looking up at the stars. Earth really was a very beautiful planet._

_Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him. He spun round to see, and saw the lengthening shadow of a human coming round the corner. Quick as a flash, as was his style, he dove over the bridge, grabbing the supports beneath and flipping over, clinging onto the underside of the bridge. The human walked passed, and he began to climb back up._

_Unfortunately, he slipped slightly, and the support cracked a little beneath his weight. The human turned to see what the noise was and, in a panic, he let go of the bridge completely to avoid being seen. He got a good look at the woman, however. She was somewhat curvaceous, with long tawny hair and glasses, nothing particularly standout-ish for a human._

_Blurr fell to the street below, flipping in midair in order to land on his feet. He stood up and shot a quick glance around. The area was empty, but not for long. He looked down the road suddenly as he heard the sound of approaching cars. Surprised, he quickly transformed to vehicle mode and took off in the same direction as the oncoming cars. He looked back and saw the human drivers jeering at each other as they passed them, and he realised he'd dropped into a race._

_Competitive side reborn, Blurr waited for the human-driven cars to catch up with him. Once they had, he sped up, zooming away down the road in an impressive burst of speed. As he drove, Blurr was immersed in memories of his days as a pro racer, and the reason why came back to him – the sheer thrill._

_Meanwhile, the host of the race was sat in his cabin, watching the blue racer with interest. He'd never seen a car go so fast! But where had it come from? He watched intently for a while, engrossed in the car's speed, but then something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Master Disaster turned to look at it._

_Outside, on the pavement by the road, something lay glowing brightly. He stepped out of the cabin and walked over to it. He picked it up and examined it. It felt like ice, but left no water on his gloved hands when he touched it. Whatever it was, it was _very _bright. He shrugged and pocketed it, turning to re-enter his cabin._

_Master Disaster closed the door behind him and shot a glance at the monitors. The blue racer was still in the lead, and it didn't look like that was going to change. The glowing object began to shine even brighter than before as he sat down, blinding him and enveloping the cabin in its glow. The light subsided after a while, after which it seemed to have completely gone. He looked about for it, but didn't see it. Eventually, his eyes fell upon the controller to an RC car he'd had as a boy, and kept his entire life as a keepsake. The battery hatch was glowing faintly, so he opened it to see why. The glowing shard was inside, sat in the place where the batteries should have been. _

_He spun the wheel round, not expecting anything to happen, but then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blue racer jerk suddenly in the direction he'd turned the remote, barging another racer off the track. Master Disaster spun the wheel again and the car veered off in the same direction once more. A wicked grin spread across his lips. He'd made a _very _good discovery here. He pressed down on the accelerator button, and the car zoomed forwards, a blue trail left in its place._

_Master Disaster was going to enjoy his new toy very much._

"You were the one who startled me when I was captured by Master Disaster!" Blurr said.

"The underground race host?" the woman replied. "I wouldn't be seen dead near him!" Bumblebee twiddled his digits as she said this.

"You weren't _at _the race, you were walking across one of the bridges and startled me, making me fall onto the track," Blurr clarified.

"I see," the woman said, raising an eyebrow. She was about to turn away and say goodnight when Flash Bang groaned loudly and shot off into the approaching night.

"Flash Bang?" Blurr called to her as she fled. "Flash, what's wrong? Where are you going?"

"Go away!" she shrieked back. After a moment, Blurr realised that she hadn't got over her issue with everyone but her restoring his memories.

"Come back!" he yelled to her, trying to act in command, but she just carried on going. Blurr's shoulders sagged. "Flash…?"

* * *

"So, you got another memory back?" Optimus Prime asked, trying to clarify.

"Yes, and it upset Flash, so she ran away," Blurr replied. He was completely downtrodden and nothing he did seemed to have the same high-octane pace as usual.

"We'll find her," Optimus promised.

"So, you lost your memory?" the woman asked. She had insisted on coming back to the Autobot base as soon as she'd noticed Sari, but was told she couldn't. Instead, the other Autobots came to the race track. The woman had even taken the time to introduce herself as Isabelle Thwaites, a British student who had come to Detroit to study robotics in the hopes that through doing so she would eventually meet Isaac Sumdac. Not that she outwardly mentioned this when Sari was around.

"Yes, but I have a lot of it back now," Blurr replied. "But I'm not really interested in any offers of help for that right now." Isabelle seemed a little dejected at that.

"I'm a _robotics _student," she said proudly, puffing up her chest. "If I can't help you then I don't know who can."

"If two of Cybertron's best scientists couldn't help, then I doubt you can either," Blurr retorted. Isabelle just folded her arms and began to talk to Sari in a far-too-polite manner. To Blurr it was obvious she was trying to sweet-talk the girl into something, but all he picked up was the occasional reference to robotics. After a while, Blurr had an idea, knowing he needed to get rid of the woman as she seemed to be getting on everybody's nerves.

"If you _really _want to help, Isabelle," he began, "you could help me find Flash Bang." Isabelle had been excited at the prospect of helping, having assumed he would continue to say something along the lines of "you could take a look at my processor", but when he finished with finding Flash Bang she became somewhat annoyed.

"_Fine," _she hissed. "If you _really _think such a task is worthy of a prodigy such as myself." But she went on to insist on doing it the next day, as she had plenty of things to sort out that evening.

* * *

_The next day._

_Bleep, bleep, bleep _was the only noise Isabelle heard as she scanned the area around her with her very own custom built robot detector. It was a little more complicated than just that, but that was the most simplistic name for it.

_Bleep, bleep, bleep, _it continued. She followed it senselessly, not realising it was leading her to Lake Erie. Not even the water sparkling in the sunlight caught her attention.

_Bleep, bleep, bleep. _She followed it over a pedestrian bridge, far too bored to think about where she was. She didn't stop to think until she felt grass under her shoes.

"What?" she said, dumbfounded. She looked around her, realising she was on some form of island. She shrugged and continued on her way, following that mind numbingly consistent bleep, bleep, bleep.

But her thoughts wandered to another noise. It sounded like crying, but at the same time like electrical circuits fizzing. She looked up and saw before her what she'd been sent to find. Flash Bang sat upon a large boulder, elbows resting on her knees and servos holding her faceplates. After studying the femme for a moment, Isabelle noticed oil dripping from Flash Bang's faceplates and digits, and she assumed this was the Cybertronian equivalent to tears.

"Um, Flash Bang?" the woman asked, unsure how to approach a sobbing robot. The femme stiffened and looked over at the human.

"Oh," she said. "It's _you."_

"Do you have a problem with me?" Isabelle retorted, instantly on the defensive.

"No," Flash Bang spat. "Just the fact that everyone but me seems to be effortlessly restoring Blurr's memories."

"Is that what this is all about?" Isabelle asked. "Why are you so caught up in it all?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because I want you to go back to the Autobot base so I can go to college and get on with my life," the human spat.

"How nice of you," Flash Bang hissed back. Isabelle sighed.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm a bit stressed about my robotics lessons, not that that's any excuse to be an idiot." Flash Bang looked down at Isabelle, giving her an odd look. "Blurr's worried about you."

"Blurr?" Flash Bang asked. "Honestly?"

"_Yes,"_ Isabelle pushed. Flash Bang just sat and looked off into the distance.

"I wanted to help Blurr because… because I wanted to have an adventure," Flash Bang said. "I've lived my life in a tiny apartment over a delivery shop. After my mech creator died, I had to do without all the luxuries in life, but I never once complained, and do you know why? Because I knew my femme creator couldn't afford it, and I knew that everything she did, she did for me. Who could ask for more?"

Isabelle was stunned. She hadn't realised the Autobots had emotions as deep as humans did. For a moment, she didn't say anything, but then she moved to be in front of Flash Bang and sat down on a rock, looking up at her.

"From what I've been told," she began, "you're the only reason why Blurr survived to _get _his memories back and, even though I've only just met you all, I can tell he's beyond grateful."

Flash Bang didn't move for a moment as she took in what Isabelle had said. The human was right and Flash Bang wasn't going to deny that, but was Blurr _really _that thankful?

"What makes you say that?" Flash Bang asked. Isabelle shrugged.

"Mostly the way he was speed-talking everyone to death about how worried he was," she explained. "It seems he really misses you when he doesn't know where you are."

"Well, I wouldn't want him to worry," Flash Bang said, a little of her usual cheer coming back as she bean to stand up.

Suddenly, the two were surprised out of their skin/shell when they heard a tremendous roar. Isabelle screamed and hid behind Flash Bang's legs as something very large charged towards them. Flash Bang scooped Isabelle up and dodged out of the way of the oncoming thing. As it passed, they saw it was a large, silver-grey robotic t-rex. Flash Bang gasped as she saw the Autobot insignia cast on its chest.

"Me Grimlock _destroy!" _it shouted as it rampaged through the trees, knocking many of them over as it charged. Flash Bang and Isabelle watched it go, mouths agape, their attention only derived from the beast when they heard a jet engine roar overhead. A quick glance at each other was all it took for them to decide to follow the dinosaur.

Night had fallen whilst Isabelle had been searching for Flash Bang, making it very hard to see for the little human. Flash Bang, however, turned on her headlights, which shone out of her shoulders and lit up the trees around them. The two followed the wreck of trees, some of which smouldered, having been torched down. After a while, they came to a clearing, and a huge rock face stood before them. An entryway was cut out of the rock, next to which a pile of boulders had fallen on top of another dinosaur robot. Flash Bang looked at the site with curiosity.

"What happened here, I wonder?" Flash Bang mused as she looked around.

"Flash Bang?" someone called. The femme looked over her shoulder to see Optimus Prime and Bumblebee approaching.

"Oh, hey," she greeted them, slightly surprised. "What are you two doing here?"

"Following Sentinel and the Jet Twins," Optimus explained. "They headed this way when Wasp was grabbed by a Dinobot."

"A what?" Isabelle asked.

"One of those," Bumblebee explained, pointing at the bot semi-buried by the entryway.

"We have to get inside, you two go back to the base and stay there," Optimus demanded.

"Rodger, that," Flash Bang replied. "Come on, Isabelle."

"You don't want to see what's going on?" Isabelle asked incredulously.

"I need to talk to Blurr," Flash Bang explained. "Though I would _love _to see what's going on in there, to be honest."

"Fair enough, but I need to go to my flat, if you'll drive me there?"

* * *

Flash Bang drove Isabelle to her flat, saying goodbye and good luck with her studies. She then continued on to the base, contemplating Isabelle's words as she went. Was Blurr really so worried about her? She'd find out soon enough. She walked into the plant quietly, trying to be inconspicuous. She really didn't want to make a spectacle of the situation. She'd nearly made it to Blurr's room to check if he was there when she saw spotted.

"Flash Bang!" Blurr called, zooming over to her. Suddenly, his slender arms were wrapped around her chassis and she was pulled into a tight hug.

"Hey, Blurr," she replied, stunned by the hug.

"I was so worried about you!" he gasped into her shoulder. "Don't _scare _me like that!"

"I'm sorry, Blurr," she said, "and… not just for running off." Blurr looked at her, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry for being so stubborn," she explained. "I just wanted to have an adventure all of my own, and everyone else is living it for me." Blurr just hugged her tighter and chuckled softly.

"No need to worry," he told her. "I came to the same conclusion a few days ago." He pulled away from her and gave her a steady look. "You're important to me, you know? I owe you my life, and it's only because of you that I'm here on Earth and getting my memories back, anyway. Flash, you _are _doing what you set out to achieve."

It all suddenly hit Flash Bang like a slap in the faceplate. She'd been such a _malfunction!_ _She'd_ taken Blurr to Earth – Earth was where all his memories were being restored. She bristled with glee for a moment and hugged Blurr tightly, taking him by surprise somewhat, but before long he returned the hug.

The two pulled away from each other after a while and just stood grinning at one another. After a while, something outside the window caught Flash Bang's optic. She moved around Blurr and looked out the window. A fine white powder was cascading down from the sky, faintly lit by the gaudy orange glow of the street lamps. Flash Bang was awed by it, as was Blurr when he saw it. They simply stood watching it for a while, but then Sari came up behind them and said, "Never seen snow before, huh?"

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**Isabelle really is a bit of a filler character, buuut she may make another appearance later on, we'll see. Anyway, more cuteness between Flash Bang and Blurr. They're good friends, really, I swear! Aaaand, if the mention of "snow" doesn't give you a clue as to what's coming up then I don't know _what _will!**


	6. Organic

**Okay, this is the first of three chapters that take place during the events of Human Error. I like them all, I think, but the second one is reeaally short. The third is my favourite, but sadly that won't be posted for another two weeks :P Anyway, I really hope you readers like this chapter, I certainly enjoyed writing it!**

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Chapter Six: Organic

Christmas spirit was taking over Detroit. The decorations were going up, the shops were overflowing with stock and the adverts for children's toys had increased greatly on the cartoon channels. Blurr had taken to watching cartoons with Bumblebee when neither one had anything better to do and the speedster had become particularly fond of one about a super speedy hedgehog. Flash Bang watched with the mechs, and occasionally took to playing videos games with them, too. She'd relaxed since running away to Dinobot Island, which made Blurr feel rather relieved. He appreciated her efforts, he really did, he was just worried about how the whole thing was affecting _her._

Flash Bang had taken to the snow, in fact, she loved it. She giggled childishly when she saw her tyre tracks and footprints behind her, and enjoyed trying to build snowmen. Unfortunately for Blurr, she was a very childish femme, and he walked into a great many snowball attacks headed by her and Bumblebee. Blurr wasn't one for taking and not giving, however, and used his speed to more or less bury his two friends in snowballs.

Sari insisted on decorating the Autobot base, having missed out on doing so the year before, and had Bulkhead help her bring in a large fir tree. She'd collected old road signs and traffic cones from around the city, as well as "borrowing" some of the large strings of lights from the shopping district, all of which she used to decorate the tree. Sari had explained to the Autobots about Christmas, telling them all about presents and Santa Claus. Obviously, the Autobots didn't really understand what the whole thing was about, but they enjoyed the feel of it al.

"So, you buy presents for your friends?" Blurr asked Sari one afternoon. Christmas was just two days away, and Blurr was helping Sari with the last of the decorations.

"Yep," the organic replied. "It's tradition. Are you gonna get anything for Flash Bang?" Blurr froze for a moment.

"Do you think I should?" Blurr asked "I don't know if she's getting anything for me or not, and I wouldn't want to disappoint her if she does."

"I think I heard her mention something to Bumblebee…" Sari replied, a cheeky tone entering her voice.

"Maybe I should, then," Blurr said, mostly to himself.

"I have the _perfect_ idea, if you want some help," Sari said, a huge grin spreading across her face. She jumped down from her perch on the cherry picker she'd been stood on and dashed over to a thick catalogue on the table. She flicked through it and came to a stop on one page with a brightly coloured double page spread showing pictures of LCD photo frames.

"What are those?" Blurr asked.

"Photo frames," Sari explained. "You take pictures and load them onto a memory card, which you put into these and they show them in a slideshow."

Blurr used his optical zoom to get a better look at the catalogue. It did seem like a good idea, as Flash Bang would surely like something to remember her trip to Earth by. But how would she take photos for it?

"I have a camera," Sari added. "I can take some photos of the base and the city and load them on for you."

Blurr grinned as the whole thing came together before him. "That would be brilliant, Sari. Thank you."

Sari was out for the rest of the day, choosing a nice frame and taking lots of photos. She put everything together back at Sumdac Tower so as not to be discovered by Flash Bang, who had also gone to her for help with a present, not that she'd let that on to Blurr. Once she had the photos on the frame and the box nicely wrapped up, she headed back to the base, where she put the box under the tree with all the other ones she'd bought for and in the stead of the Autobots. Everything was ready, and the next day was Christmas Eve.

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Flash Bang was reclining on the sofa, watching Bumblebee and Bulkhead shake their presents in order to guess what was inside them.

"What do you think we got?" Bulkhead asked.

"We could run them through Ratchet's x-ray scanner and find out!" Bumblebee suggested.

"Not if you want to end up on Santa's naughty list," Sari chided them both. They put the presents down and went to help her with the decorations, and not a single Autobot or techno-organic present noticed Bulkhead's present shake on its own.

"I just don't see how this "Santa Claus" could deliver billions of presents in one night," Ratchet said to Prowl as they entered. Flash Bang had to agree, how _could_ any one person do such a thing?

"I can think of a way," Prowl said, activating his holo-projector and creating two images of himself. "Ho, ho, ho." Optimus entered then.

"Sound theory, Prowl," he said to the ninja bot. "I did see multiple Santas in the shopping district tonight."

Blurr came in from the med bay, having had one of his now-regular processor-checks by Ratchet. He was rubbing the side of his cranial unit where Ratchet had been poking around, helm under his free arm. The sight of Blurr without his helm on reminded Flash Bang of when he'd been put in a new protoform, but he'd had no armour at all at that point. The thought of Blurr without his armour on made Flash Bang's faceplate heat up slightly. Blurr came and sat down next to the femme, replacing his helm and turning to give her a smile.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him.

"Ratchet says my processor is coping better now," he explained. "It was probably just the massive overload of memories I got when I saw Sentinel that fried me. It's weird how vivid everything seems."

"I can't imagine," Flash Bang confessed. "It must be so peculiar, not knowing anything and then suddenly having it all back."

Blurr didn't reply, he just sat back and relaxed. He was enjoying this "Christmas spirit" feel in the air, and he was _very_ excited to see Flash Bang's reaction to her present. He hadn't dared to tell anyone about what he'd bought, particularly Bumblebee, who he just _knew_ would tell Flash Bang. He thanked Sari when he could for her help.

The TV kicked into life then, blazing out a Christmas tune that had Blurr tapping his heels together to the rhythm. He shot a cheeky glance at Flash Bang out of the corner of his optic, then jumped up and pulled her up with him. Flash bang yelped in surprise, but then descended into fits of giggles and began to follow Blurr's lead as he pulled her through a rather haphazard dance. Blurr laughed along with her as they moved in unison, Blurr being swift and graceful, but Flash Bang being slightly indelicate, but as she got used to the movements she grew more and more graceful. Eventually, she was swinging and pirouetting and spinning about the room with more grace than Blurr.

"You're amazing!" Blurr complimented, stunned at her performance. Flash Bang grinned at him, her faceplate heating up.

"Gearshift taught me some of his ninja techniques," she told him. "But Mercury always dreamt of me being a dancer at one of the fancy hangout spots like The Circle. So, I put the two together."

"Well, it's fantastic!" Blurr applauded her. The two went back to the sofa as the song finished. Bumblebee came up to them, holding an oil barrel.

"Oil nog?" Bumblebee offered, passing the oil barrel to Blurr before picking up another one for Flash Bang. Flash Bang took a sniff of the stuff through her olfactory sensor, wrinkling up her faceplate in suspicion before taking a small sip.

"It's good," she said, smiling and taking a bigger gulp. Blurr took a deep glug, then threw his cranial unit back and chugged the rest. Flash Bang drank the rest of hers down greedily and instantly her processor began to feel horribly fuzzy. Disturbance messed up her vision and her audio sensors were filled with white noise. Blurr was much the same, and had even slid down the sofa till his aft was hanging off it.

"What's _in_ this stuff?" Bumblebee asked.

"I don't know, but my processor's _real_ fuzzy," Bulkhead replied, reclining and rubbing his cranial unit.

"Yeah, it's sure got me ready for a stasis nap," Ratchet added. The Autobots all got up, one by one, and filed out to their rooms, moving at a slow and sluggish pace. Flash Bang had to pull Blurr up from his spot – half sat on, half hanging off the sofa, empty oil can slipping from his servo as he slumped.

"What, no waiting up for Santa?" Sari asked surprised. "You guys are a bunch of party poopers."

"There's still tomorrow, Sari," Optimus said. "Oh, and, er, merry Christmas," he added as he yawned.

"Merry Christmas, big guy," Sari replied. "And pleasant dreams."

Flash Bang had Blurr's arm slung over her shoulder, though she was feeling like she needed some support, as well. She struggled with the release for the door, pawing at the wall until she found it. She helped Blurr to his berth, after which she managed to fall on top of him.

"Whoa!" she cried, falling to lie on his chest. "Sorry, Blurr." Her faceplates heated up as Blurr sat up and helped her back to her feet.

"Stay here," he slurred, a slight, cheeky grin on his face. To a human he would have looked _very_ drunk.

"If I fall over before getting to the door, then okay," she replied, turning on her heel strut and taking a very wobbly step, after which she stumbled to one side, grabbing onto a crate for support.

"I count that as a fall," Blurr laughed.

"It was a _stumble_," Flash Bang retorted. Blurr insisted it was the same thing but she shook her cranial unit and wobbled further on, but then she completely collapsed and didn't get back up. Blurr had fallen into recharge by then and so didn't react.

* * *

A small noise escaped Blurr's mouth as he came to. It wasn't quite a moan, but not quite a grumble, either. He rolled over on the berth, scratching at the spot where Ratchet looked into his processor and brushing a hand through his hair.

That's when he woke up with a fright.

"What the?" he yelled, tugging at the soft blue fuzz on top of his head. As he did so, he noticed his arm – long, slender, pale flesh wrapped in a blue zip-up sports jacket. His legs were much the same and clothed in light blue skinny jeans with blue running shoes. He rolled off the berth in a panic, winded by the impact as his small human body landed with a _thump_ on the ground so far below. He ran over to a shiny piece of metal on the wall and looked at himself. He screamed as he saw his angular white face, blue eyes and his blue hair with a dark blue streak where his fin should be.

"Blurr…?" he heard Flash Bang moan. He'd not realised that she'd collapsed on his floor. He looked over to her, but, like him, she wasn't a robot anymore. But when he saw her, he was stunned. She was a young woman with brown hair in tight ringlets. Her skin was a healthy golden-brown, as if she'd been sitting in the sun on a summer afternoon. She was dressed in a black vest under an open red and black lumberjack shirt with a pair of black skinny jeans and skateboarding shoes. When she looked up at Blurr, he saw she had emerald green eyes and heart shaped face.

"What happened to _you?"_ she asked, shocked at her friend's appearance.

"I could ask you the same thing," Blurr replied, running over to her and pulling her up from the floor. His speed was gone, and because of that he felt oddly vulnerable. As he pulled her up, he realised just how weak this little body was, and actually had to lean back to get her off the ground. Flash Bang was similarly troubled, having lost the grace she'd had the night before, although, unbeknownst to her, that was from sleeping on the hard floor.

"We need to go find the others," Flash Bang declared. Blurr nodded and turned to the door.

The two went out into the corridor, where the first thing they saw was humanised Bumblebee charge headlong into humanised Bulkhead. Ratchet came pottering out of his room, now an old man. Last to appear was Optimus, who had become a middle-aged man with greying hair and blue eyes.

"Prime?" Bumblebee asked incredulously. "Look at you! You're hideous!"

"We're _all_ hideous!" Bulkhead added, staring at his enormous podgy hands. "We're… people!"

"There must be a rational explanation for this!" Prime declared. The human-Autobots charged into Ratchet's med bay, where Ratchet scanned Prime, brining up a scan of a perfectly human body.

"There… is no rational explanation for this," he declared. "We've become one hundred percent human!"

"Where's Prowl?" Optimus asked.

"He's not in his room, I checked," Ratchet replied.

The group went outside, where they found Prowl stood with his hand out to the snow. Blurr looked over Flash Bang's human form again. She didn't look bad, for a human. In fact, he thought she was really rather pretty.

"We need to get to Sumdac Tower," Optimus said after they'd spoken briefly with Prowl. "Auto… men? Transform, uh, roll- ah. Let's just go."

The group walked through Detroit, wondering what in Primus' name had happened to them. Blurr was amazed by how different everything seemed from the far smaller height, but his thoughts quickly turned to Flash Bang when he felt her shiver by his side.

"Are you okay?" he asked her as she rubbed her arms.

"I'm… I'm _cold_," she told him. Blurr gave her a worried look and then took off his jacket, revealing a plain black sports shirt underneath. He threw it over her shoulders and rubbed her back as she pulled it over herself.

"Thank you, Blurr," she said. "But what about you?"

"I'm okay for now," he lied, holding back a shiver. A car drove past then, spraying the lot of them in slushy snow.

"Watch it!" Ratchet yelled as the lot of them gasped and shook the snow out of their hair. "How do humans survive in these soft, fleshy bodies?"

"I don't know," Bulkhead replied. "But my fuel tank's making a funny noise." He rubbed his stomach as he said this.

"Perhaps our human bodies need some refuelling?" Optimus suggested, looking over to a nearby Burger Bot restaurant.

"I always wanted to chow down!" Bulkhead cheered, running over to the restaurant in glee.

Inside of the Burger Bot – somewhere where none of them had been before – it was nice and warm. Flash Bang returned Blurr's jacket as they sat down at two adjacent tables, waiting for the waitress. The restaurant was coloured in bright shades of gaudy orange and a far mellower pale yellow. It wasn't unpleasant, just startling. Blurr felt himself sliding off the cheap leather seats as they waited for service.

"What can I get ya, sugar?" the waitress asked once she finally came over. Both Blurr and Flash Bang were getting a little impatient; they didn't like this "hunger" thing.

"Um… I'll have one of those, please," Blurr said hesitantly, pointing to a burger being eaten by a small boy on another table.

"One quarter pounder for the jock," she said as she wrote down the order. "What about you, lumberjack?" she asked Flash Bang in reference to her shirt. Flash Bang looked up from the menu card she'd been reading.

"Err, a large fries?"

"Good choice," the waitress replied as she wrote it down. She quickly moved on to Ratchet, who was sat on Blurr and Flash Bang's table, before moving onto the next table with the other four "Automen" on it. Blurr shot a quick glance over at Flash Bang, who had discovered that breathing on the window made it cloud up. She was curiously looking at the condensation, running a finger through it and frowning when it became wet. Blurr smiled whimsically; she was such a curious femme!

The food came before long, and Blurr was disgusted to see Bulkhead put away three burgers before he'd taken three bites of his own. The food wasn't great, but none of them had anything to compare it to and ate it up anyway. Flash Bang enjoyed the fries and ate them up quickly, but was a little annoyed when she realised she hadn't had as much to eat as everyone else.

"Did anyone ever stop to think about how we're going to pay for this?" Blurr asked Flash Bang after swallowing another mouthful of burger. Flash Bang just shrugged and began to eye Blurr's burger.

"Any good?" she asked. Blurr followed her gaze to the burger and shrugged in reply.

"Take it or leave it, but I'm not exactly a human food connoisseur," he replied. The two looked up suddenly as Bulkhead stood up and charged through a door with a very basic drawing of a human male on it.

"Uhh, Ratchet," Bumblebee said, "you're the doctor, maybe you should go check on him?"

"Oh no, I am _not_ going in there!" the old medic replied. His attention turned to Prowl, shortly after, when he noticed the ninja playing peek-a-boo with a baby sat at another nearby table.

"Here I am," the ninja said, covering his eyes. "Peek-a-boo." The baby squealed in delight as Prowl repeated the gesture to her a few more times.

"You think she'd be laughing if you were a giant robot?" Ratchet demanded.

"That's the point," Prowl said. "Being human has given me a greater understanding of what this holiday season means. I'm… thankful to just be alive in any form."

"I'm thankful, too, let me tell you," Bulkhead declared as he reappeared and sat down to resume his meal. He suddenly dropped his burger as the building suddenly shook with terrible force, throwing his hands into the air and saying, "Wasn't me." The group dashed back outside into the cold, and all any of them could do was stare as the sky was filled with Decepticons.

"Oh, we are _so_ slagged," Flash Bang mumbled to Blurr. The Decpeticons transformed one by one in front of them and began to tear up the city mercilessly. Optimus and his team quickly grew angry at what was playing out before them, but all Blurr could do was stare in horror as Shockwave landed on the asphalt.

"No…" he whispered. "He's gonna kill me!"

"Blurr, calm down," Flash bang cried, grabbing his shoulders and forcing him to look at her. "You'll be _fine!_ He' doesn't know you've become human; as far as we know, he doesn't even know you're _here."_

The group dropped to the ground as a nearby tower block fell under Shockwave's fire, rippling the air with the force of the subsequent explosion. The lower half of the building remained intact, but was quickly being devoured by the hungry flames. Fire trucks were on the scene in minutes, but Prime and his team were already in action.

"Bulkhead, Bumblebee, suppress that fire!" Optimus commanded. The two instantly took to grabbing a fire hose from a case on the wall and blasting the fire with it. Ratchet and Prime began helping a woman who was laid out on the floor, choking badly on the smoke. They picked her up between them and helped her outside. On the way, however, they heard someone calling for help.

"Help, Mommy!" a fearful young voice called out.

"My son! He's upstairs!" Prowl was off before she could say anymore. Blurr and Flash Bang followed him up with every intention of helping him with the boy, but a silhouetted figure in one of the other rooms grabbed their attention.

"Sir, you have to get out!" Blurr cried once he noticed the man had nothing stopping him from leaving. The man didn't move, however, he just stood where he was, staring out of the window at the carnage below. Blurr moved towards him, Flash Bang staying by the doorway. As Blurr approached, he was wary of the flames trying to scorch him, and danced away from them from time to time when they spat out. The man didn't move as such, he just stood as if there was nothing at all to worry about and all he cared for was the sunny blue sky.

"Sir…?" Blurr asked. All of a sudden he had a terrible feeling about what he saw before him. The man turned slowly, far too slowly to be real. When he looked at Blurr, all the speedster saw was a single red eye flashing cruelly at him.

"Hello, Blurr," said the humanised Shockwave. Blurr didn't need anymore encouragement than that to turn tail, grab Flash Bang and run, and all the while one thought chased through his mind.

_"Shockwave crushed me."_

___

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**_Revelations~_ LOL! **

**So, Blurr seems to know a little more of what's what now, so hopefully things'll get easier for him and Flash Bang. We've still got the human form problem, however. **

**Thank you to Jaacs McHenry for adding the story to your watch! Much appreciated!**

**Anyway, stay tuned for the next update in a week or so, and please review!**

**:D**


	7. Only Human

**Short chapter is short.**

**I didn't have a whole lot of inspiration for this chapter, but I swear the next one is epic.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

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Chapter Seven: Only Human

Blurr dragged Flash Bang by the hand outside, his feet moving faster than any human's ever could. Flash Bang noticed this, but was too confused by the oddness of the situation to comment. When the two burst outside, the clean air came as a relief after the thick smog from inside.

"Blurr, Flash Bang, you two okay?" Bumblebee asked them worriedly as they appeared. Blurr just shook his head exasperatedly, still clinging onto Flash Bang's hand. Flash Bang looked up at Bumblebee as she tried to calm Blurr down, him having become just as terrified as he had been in the storage room when they'd been locked in by Wasp.

"Shockwave was the one who tried to kill him," Flash Bang told Bumblebee. "He remembers now." Bumblebee stared open mouthed at Blurr for a moment, but soon became preoccupied with a far more imminent matter. Starscream, in all his arrogant glory, flew down towards them, transforming and reeling in his own self-envisioned superiority.

"Foolish organics," he cackled maliciously, "you scramble to survive but your doom is sealed! Run robo fodder, run for all the good it will do you!"

Bulkhead chose that moment to throw a punch at Starscream's leg, but all it did was break the bones in his hand. Bumblebee grabbed onto the Decepticon's leg, but was thrown off when Starscream swung his leg out, sending him flying into Ratchet and Prowl. Optimus tried next, slashing him with his axe, only to be backhanded by Starscream into a nearby wall. He was shaken badly for a moment, but came-to quickly. As Prime tried to move, however, he felt the damage done to his leg.

"My leg," he moaned. "Ratchet, I think it's broken!" Without another word, the other Autobots grabbed him and carried him over to a nearby ambulance. Starscream heard the Prime's exclamation, and reeled back in surprise at what he saw before him.

"Ratchet? I thought I recognised those voices! You've been living with these pathetic organics for so long, you've actually _become _them! It will be a simple matter to crush you out of existence right now!" But he lost sight of them as soon as they went.

The Decepticons continued on their rampage, leaving them alone for the time being. Flash Bang was thankful to have a quiet moment to see to Blurr.

"Blurr," she said softly. "Blurr, are you okay?" She put her hands on his shoulders, prompting him to look up at her.

"I… Everything is coming together now," he said quietly. "I understand why Shockwave tried to kill me in his office, and… I think he crushed me because of the evidence I found about Wasp. It would have exposed _him_ as the real traitor." Blurr looked up at Flash Bang with relief, and Flash Bang couldn't blame him for it. To have everything so jumbled up and confused in his mind, it must be so _frustrating!_ But now he had that one vital memory that put everything into perspective and, even though he still had half a lifetime of memories to regain, he was _Blurr _again.

Well, apart from the whole human body thing.

"We need to get to Sumdac Tower," Optimus said after his leg was seen to by a paramedic. The conversation quickly turned to how they were to get there, to which Prowl answered with public transport.

As declared by Bulkhead, the bus wasn't so bad. It gave the group a chance to appreciate how humans relied on vehicles to get them to places. None of them could relax, least of all Blurr, who was running over everything piece by piece in his head. Flash Bang was worried that he'd overload his processor again, but then remembered that he now had a human brain, which she guessed worked differently.

The bus got them to Sumdac Tower quickly, but their intentions of entering were cut short when the city fell into the shadow of an enormous astral body. The Autobots all looked up in unison at the sky, and not a single one knew what to say as Cybertron descended into Earth's orbit. There was nothing any of them could do, as humans or as Autobots, as a laser was fired down on Sumdac Tower, obliterating it in seconds. Once again, the sky was filled with Decepticons, but this time, they were led by Megatron, who landed before the Automen along with Starscream, Lugnut and Blitzwing. Blurr was at least partly relieved to see Shockwave wasn't there, but even so, he was still confused and in no shape to be running from Decepticons.

"Bow before Megatron!" the Decepticon leader declared. "Now that I am Lord of Cybertron, I return to Earth to exterminate organics once and for all!"

"Especially those who have chosen to become organics!" Starscream cawed, pointing to the Automen, all of who stood together defensively.

"This can't be happening…" Bulkhead mumbled. Optimus stood up, putting weight on his broken leg.

"You're right, Bulkhead, it can't be happening!" he declared, stepping forwards on the broken appendage.

"Isn't your leg broken?" Bumblebee asked him, surprised.

"No, his leg was never broken," Prowl said quietly, realisation hitting him. "Because his leg was never real… _None of this is real!" _

"Is this real enough for you?" Megatron growled, grabbing Prowl and squeezing him in his servo. Prowl pushed back, managing to keep the Decepticon's digits open. Megatron just laughed cruelly, and dared Prowl to do his worst. Suddenly, the tables turned, and Prowl shot into the air, bringing his hand down and _slicing off Megatron's arm. _The Decepticon screamed in pain, clutching at his shoulder as the torn limb fell to the ground.

Something was very wrong. Blurr couldn't contain himself any longer, his body was shaking and his head was spinning. He didn't know what was what anymore, and for a moment he thought his body had become robotic again as his head began pounding as if he had a processor ache. He quickly became disorientated and his legs buckled beneath him.

"Blurr!" Flash Bang yelled as the speedster flopped down. She managed to grab him and, with Ratchet's help, carry him to the side of the street, under the cover of a broken wall where they set him down.

"Blurr, what's wrong?" Flash Bang asked, but the speedster was out cold. Ratchet didn't know what to do, humans weren't exactly his forte.

Prowl was safely back on the ground, only for Blitzwing to try to step on him. The ninja braced himself and pushed against the triple changer's support servo, keeping him back with little effort. Bulkhead charged at Blitzwing's leg, throwing himself through it and creating a large hole. Blitzwing raised it up to his faceplate to look at it.

"Oh, look, I have a hole in my rocket!" Random Blitzwing cackled. He fell to his aft but quickly came back up, firing his lasers at the ground. Bumblebee raced in, scaling the Decepticon's leg and punching his three faces until they spun round and round, making him exceptionally dizzy and knocking him offline. Prowl began floating in the air, terrifying Starscream who tried and failed to shoot him down. The ninja's image flickered as he phased inside the Seeker's cranial unit, frying his circuits and knocking him out.

Flash Bang had had enough of standing by with Ratchet and Blurr and raced back out into the street. She ignored Ratchet's yell to come back and began to charge straight at Lugnut. The oversized mech readied his weapons and fired at her, but she dodged with skill almost equal to Prowl. When she reached Lugnut's support servos she leapt into the air, going impossibly high, lacing her fingers together and bringing her interlocked hands down on the Decepticon's head. There was a screech of tearing metal and fizzing circuits as Lugnut's cranial unit was crushed beneath the force of her strike.

"Take that, slagger," she said as she dropped down to the ground. Lugnut fell, offline but not dead, with Energon leaking everywhere.

"Flash Bang!" Ratchet called to her. "You need to get back here!" Flash bang turned and ran over to Ratchet, hoping that Blurr had come round. But when she turned around the wall she saw he hadn't.

He'd vanished.

"Where is he?" Flash bang cried out.

"I _don't know!" _Ratchet replied. "He just vanished into thin air!"

Flash Bang simply didn't know what to think.

Optimus grabbed a hold of Megatron's severed arm and began a barrage of attacks with it, pummelling the Decepticon with the strength of his Autobot body. Megatron was astounded, taking hit after hit from this tiny human. Optimus eventually lowered the arm and looked up at Megatron with undisguised hate in his human eyes.

"You're finished, Megatron," he growled. Megatron snarled at him.

"I will _never _surrender to a human!" he roared. He raised his cannon to fire but Optimus got there first, dropping the arm and throwing his axe right into the barrel. After a moment, there was a tremendous explosion, and a cloud of purple smoke enveloped everything in sight. The Automen coughed as the smoke began to clear, and when it did, everything Decepticon was gone, including Cybertron. But Flash Bang wasn't worried about that, she was worried about Blurr.

"Where are you…?"

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**OMG, what happened to Blurr? You'll have to wait till next Monday to find out ;)**

**Please review!**

**:D**


	8. The Sound of Music

**This is my favourite chapter so far. I'm not exactly sure why, but it's probably because it's EPIC! :P**

**Anyway, I loved writing it, reading it and re-reading it. I have no problems with it and I hope you all like it!**

**Enjoy!**

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Chapter Eight: The Sound of Music

Blurr suddenly felt very warm, too warm. He opened his eyes slowly, seeing his still-human hands and realising the whole thing hadn't been a dream. He pushed himself from the floor and looked about him. He was back on Cybertron, in the Autobot High Council meeting hall! But something was wrong, the walls of the room were ablaze, the windows were shattered and where there should have been Ultra Magnus, Perceptor, Alpha Trion and the rest of them, every single one of them had been replaced by Longarm. Blurr could only stare at the multiple Longarms in shock as he stood up, and as he did so they sneered at him in perfect unison.

"Welcome back, Agent Blurr," they said together. "How nice of you to join us."

Still in perfect unison, they shifted into Shockwave, and those cycloptic faces all glared at him like a hunter with his prey. Blurr shivered slightly in fear, but swallowed his terror and looked at the one in Ultra Magnus' place with confidence.

"I remember you now," he said. "I remember that it was _you _who tried to kill me." If the Shockwaves had had mouths, they'd have been sneering.

"Well, at least it saves me explaining it for you," they said. The guns came up, glowing as they prepared to fire, but Blurr clearly remembered the realisation Prowl had had. Nothing here was real.

The guns fired but Blurr was already in the air, somersaulting impossibly high before landing back on the ground with grace. The Shockwaves all seemed stunned, but continued their united attack. Blurr dodged and leapt out of the way, imagining that he was an Autobot again. But then, as he thought that, something changed.

Blurr was suddenly the right height again, and his human flesh was changing to his usual blue and black body as he looked at himself. His armour seemed to sprout out of his body and all the colour literally left his face, leaving it white as it should be. He ran a servo over his helm, grinning as he felt his fin was back. Blurr looked up at Shockwave with a challenge in his optics.

"Think you can beat me now?" he taunted, but Shockwave only stared at him.

"You could be anything you wanted to be, Blurr," the Shockwaves declared. "But in here, _I_ have control."

The ground shook violently, causing Blurr to wobble before he found his footing once more. But that wasn't enough, he realised, as a number of robotic arms burst through the floor and began to grab at him. He gasped in surprise, but then his optics narrowed as he concentrated on dodging the grabbing servos. Once again he set to leaping about, using his speed to dodge easily. From time to time he shot a glance at the Shockwaves, and every time they all had their single red optic trained on him.

Blurr found a perch high above the ground, running up the wall and leaping off to an enormous light fixture hanging from the ceiling. But as soon as he grabbed a hold of the light, it vanished. Blurr yelled in surprise as he fell to the floor. He landed with a thump and instantly the arms were on him, grabbing a hold of him with impossible strength. Blurr tried to pull back against them, but they were far too strong, and before long he felt that they weren't trying to pull him apart, but pull him _below the floor. _

With a sickening clarity Blurr realised he was sinking, the arms dragging him beneath the polished metal they'd sprouted from. He grew desperate, wrenching his arms away with vigour only to have them pulled back down harder. Blurr was up to his chest in the floor, and the arms were beginning to grab at his shoulders and cranial unit. Everything seemed lost, but he refused to give up. He pulled and struggled and even tried to bite the arms, but nothing worked.

But then everything just stopped. The arms were still clinging to him, keeping him in place, but he wasn't being dragged down anymore. He looked up at the Shockwave stood in Ultra Magnus' spot. There was a harsh glare to his optic, as there was to every other optic in the room, but then it softened into a mocking stare.

"What is there left for you, Blurr?" Shockwave purred. "You've nothing left. You can't be of any use to Intelligence without your memories." Blurr was about to retort, saying that he had them back, but something happened. He felt as if everything he knew was being torn out of his processor, all the memories he'd regained slipping away.

But then Shockwave pushed one button too many. He raised a servo to a door behind him. It slid open, revealing nothing but darkness, but out of it stepped a little red femme. Out of it stepped Flash Bang.

"Divine, isn't she?" Shockwave sneered. "To bad she doesn't want _you."_

As he said this, Flash Bang came to stand by Shockwave's side, wrapping her arms around one of Shockwave's and hanging off him like so many lusty femmes had hung from Blurr during his racing days. For a moment, Blurr couldn't do anything, he just stared, but as he took in the scene, he felt a raging anger build up inside him. He watched as Shockwave ran a claw beneath Flash Bang's pointed chin, making her faceplates heat up and causing her to shiver in pleasure. But then, his stroke turned to a grip. Shockwave gently laced his claws around her chin, looping his other servo around her waist and drawing her in.

Blurr didn't have to see Shockwave crush his featureless faceplate against Flash Bang's to start seeing red, but it worked anyway. Anger tore through Blurr like scissors through paper, and the next thing he knew a chainsaw erupted from his arm and he was using it to slash away at the arms holding him down. Metal, oil and cables went flying everywhere and Blurr was soon free, clambering through the deactivated arms and heading directly for the Shockwave that was holding Flash Bang.

He was nearly there, but just as he reached out to the barrier around the platform, the arms reactivated. Blurr was quickly submerged in the grappling arms, but this time he slashed them as they came, slicing through them before they could drag him down. He reached out as he made it forward, grabbing the barrier and pulling himself up, slashing at the arms that still clung to him. He pushed up against the barrier, leaping into the air. He flipped himself over and looked directly at Shockwave, who was still "kissing" Flash Bang. Blurr knew it wasn't real, but he just didn't care. He raised his chainsaw as he fell and, as soon as he was in reach, he brought it down through the Decepticon's cranial unit.

There was an ear splitting screech as the chainsaw tore through Shockwave, which was followed by an enormous howl of rage and finally a shockwave like the Decepticon before him was named after. Blurr was thrown backwards, straight into the arms, but they were completely dead now and snapped like brittle twigs as he landed on them. After he'd landed, Blurr looked around him, and saw that all the Shockwaves had gone, leaving Flash Bang alone. After a moment the arms withered away and vanished, leaving the floor perfectly smooth as it had been before. Blurr stood up again and looked over at the femme. She was just stood there, not looking at anything in particular. Blurr vaulted back over the barrier and onto the platform.

"Flash Bang?" he said quietly. She just continued to stare off into space, in the general direction of where Shockwave had been. Blurr waved a servo in front of her optics, but she did nothing. Blurr stood directly in front of her, as if commanding her attention. He snapped his digits and clapped his servos, but she didn't do anything at all. Blurr put his servos on her shoulders and shook her slightly. She moved like anyone would, but Blurr leapt back in horror as she began to _melt, _leaving liquid red all over his servos like human blood_. _Her red armour began to liquefy and drip to the floor, forming large puddles of molten metal. Blurr could only watch in horror as her circuits began to fizz and her optics offlined permanently. Chunks of her armour dropped to the ground and continued to melt, and all Blurr could do was offline his optics and scream.

That's when he woke up. He wasn't in his room; in fact he didn't have a clue where he was at all. His processor was aching terribly, and wherever he was, it was very dark. Only the faint glow of some nearby monitors gave light to the room. Blurr looked about him as he began to come round, but felt his cranial unit held in place by a number of cables. He reached up and pulled on one. It snapped off, making a fizzing sound, and instantly his processor ache felt noticeably better. He pulled the rest of them off and sighed in relief as the ache went completely. He shot one quick glance around the room, and his optics fell upon each of the other Autobots, all of who were strapped into units like the one he'd just freed himself from.

"Autobot escape: impossible," a voice said. It wasn't like anything Blurr had ever heard before, and sounded like it had been badly synthesised. Blurr looked up, only to reel back as a Decepticon lurched at him. He rolled off the berth as the Decepticon fell on it, stood up and then kicked him hard when he came for Blurr again. The Decepticon was thrown back by the force of Blurr's kick, and so Blurr took his chance. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the Autobots, and saw Flash Bang laid out on the berth furthest from him. He hesitated for a moment, unsure if he should go free her or not, but one last attempted attack from the Decepticon told Blurr he was in way over his cranial unit.

He revved his engines and sped out the door, only to find himself in a dimly lit corridor with no obvious way out. But then he noticed the lift at the end, partially concealed in shadow. He charged forwards, lacing his digits through the wire gate in front of it and throwing it open.

"Eject: Ravage," the Decepticon said. "Operation: capture or destroy." Blurr looked over his shoulder as he entered the lift. He watched as the Decepticon's chest opened up and a smaller, feline Decepticon leapt out. It padded forwards, growling softly, before leaping at the wire just as Blurr slammed it shut. The feline's claws grabbed onto the wire and it began to pull away at the door just as the lift began its ascent.

Blurr was enveloped in light as the lift resurfaced in the Autobot base. It was completely empty, not even Sari was there. Blurr stepped off just as the lift descended again, but Blurr didn't realise this until Ravage leapt out and pounced on him, bringing Blurr to the ground. The Decepticon roared in Blurr's audio sensors and raised a paw, preparing to strike. But Blurr flipped over, throwing an elbow at the jaguar and knocking him off his back before standing up and speeding out the door.

_I'll be back for you, Flash, _Blurr thought as he ran, conscious of the Decepticon following him. It was surprisingly fast, but not quick enough to keep up with him. Blurr sped through the streets, thankful the city was deserted with everyone at home for Christmas – well, that's what he guessed. Ravage stayed close on his tail, however, climbing the fire escape of one building and then leaping from rooftop to rooftop with unsurpassed skill. Blurr only moved faster, but the jaguar's route kept him close. Blurr was at a loss of what to do. This Decepticon could see where Blurr was going, so where could he run to?

But then Blurr saw the glimmering water of Lake Erie up ahead, and he found himself skidding to a halt on the docks. There was a metallic clatter as Ravage landed behind him, cornering Blurr between the water and his vicious fangs. Blurr turned to face the jaguar, narrowing his optics at the beast as it padded forwards in a fearfully threatening yet beautifully graceful manner. Blurr was stood at the very end of one of the piers. There weren't any boats nearby, and he didn't fancy trying to swim. There was only one thing he could do as Ravage blocked the end of the dock.

Ravage pounced, leaping high into the air, aiming for Blurr's cranial unit. Blurr dodged effortlessly, and as the jaguar sailed passed, he activated his chainsaw and brought it upwards, slicing through Ravage in one easy blow. The two halves of the jaguar fizzed and sparked as they fell into the water. All Blurr did was stare at the sinking corpse coldly.

Blurr released his intakes in a sudden gush not too different from a sigh, dropping his shoulders in relief. He jumped in fright, however, as the water behind him exploded and something leapt out. He turned round to see if Ravage had survived, but was surprised to see it wasn't the jaguar at all. It was a bright orange Autobot and, after leaping out of the water, it landed on a raft with two other Cybertronians and Sari onboard. Blurr recognised one of the Cybertronians; he'd been there when Blurr had been glued to those two Starscream clones and dragged through the space bridge. The other one, however, wasn't like anything Blurr had ever seen before. It was another animal-like Cybertronian, but it was far bigger than Ravage and a lot more bulky. After a moment, Blurr guessed it must have been one of the Dinobots he'd heard the others talk about.

"Blurr?" Sari called out to him. "You got away from Soundwave?"

"If you mean the big Decepticon that had me wired into that berth, then yes I did," Blurr shouted back as the raft came closer. "Who are these bots?"

"Allow me to introduce the Substitute Autobots," Sari declared abashedly. "Scrapper, Snarl and now Wreck-Gar. They're gonna help me save the others. You in?" Blurr punched one servo into the palm of the other.

"Naturally," he answered. "That Decepti-creep's got Flash and _I_ _am going to get her back._"

Sari grinned almost knowingly as the raft came to a halt by the pier. Blurr helped the other bots onto the pier before turning to Sari, but not before Wreck-Gar slipped and nearly fell back into the water that he'd leapt from. Blurr grabbed the mech and pulled him upright in a flash.

"So what's the plan? Storm the base? Back attack? Pre-emptive strike?" Blurr asked.

"Heading for the base is probably our best bet," Sari replied. "After that, no idea. Substitute Autobots, roll out!" Everyone but Blurr shot ahead of her, leaving the two staring after them with slight surprise.

"Wait for me!" Sari shouted after them as she powered up her new jetpack. "I'm your leader!"

Blurr transformed to go after them and caught up just as Sari managed to stop them and took to complaining about their inability to follow orders. But Blurr wasn't paying attention to them; he was listening to a strange music that had filled the air. There was a moment of eerie calm before the sound of six vehicles – Optimus Prime and his crew – joined the almost haunting melody floating through the air. Blurr froze as his optics fell on Flash Bang and Sari glowered angrily at Soundwave hovering in the air with his enormous guitar in servo.

"Flash…?" Blurr said quietly. She didn't move, she didn't do anything, and the image of her melting in the virtual reality struck Blurr again. He shook it off as a wave of sound filled the air and Optimus' crew suddenly charged him and the other Substitutes.

"Flash Bang, stop!" Blurr yelled as he was tackled to the ground by the femme. She was about to throw one of her flash bang charges into his faceplate when he forced her off with his knee and rolled away. He stood up, only to be charged by her again. This time he dodged, and Flash Bang went careening down an alley, falling into an open dumpster. Blurr shot a quick glance at the other Substitutes before going after her. The others could manage without him for now.

Flash Bang managed to pull herself free of the dumpster and took one more charge at Blurr. Blurr braced himself as she came at him, grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her backwards down the alley once more. This time, however, Blurr chased after her. Flash Bang was sprawled out on the pavement, gradually picking herself up as Blurr approached. She turned and glared angrily at him, and that's when he noticed her optics had turned Decepticon red.

"Flash Bang, what did he do to you?" Blurr asked her softly, but she just leapt at him again. This time, Burr put his chainsaw between himself and her, hoping she wouldn't be crazy enough to charge right onto it. She didn't, thankfully, but she did shove Blurr back against a wall, pressing the weapon towards Blurr's throat.

Meanwhile, Sari had realised how best to defeat Soundwave.

"Divide up! Attack on your own!" she yelled to the Substitutes. Scrapper and Wreck-Gar protested to this but she spat at them to do it. The group divided up and the effects were obvious instantly. The possessed Autobots began to struggle, their ability to coordinate their own attacks fell apart, and after a while they just stopped being of any good at all as Soundwave did his best to keep them all going. Blurr noticed the sudden change in Flash Bang's attacks, too, as her pressure on his chainsaw was growing weaker. Blurr took his chance and shoved back, eventually pinning her against the opposite wall, but she continued to resist.

"Flash Bang, stop this now!" Blurr yelled, the rotating chainsaw getting closer to his throat. "I'm not going to hurt you and I'll be slagged if I'm going to let you slice me up." But Flash Bang didn't stop. She was weaker, and Blurr could certainly overpower her, but he didn't want to hurt her and he had no idea of how to break her free of Soundwave's music. But then a thought came to him. It was daring, and it probably just a cheesy and idealistic way of getting out of the situation, but it was all he could think of.

Acting quickly, he deactivated his chainsaw, but kept her where she was by grabbing her wrists and holding them against the wall. She struggled against him, but everything seemed to stop as Blurr crushed his lip modules against hers.

For Blurr, it was an amazing sensation. He hadn't realised just how much she meant to him until Soundwave's virtual reality showed her in Shockwave's embrace. But now he could feel the sensation of love rushing through his circuits, and he just didn't want to stop. But after a moment, he forced himself to pull away. He looked at her and she looked back at him, her optics blue once more. She just stared, mouth open slightly in shock, and after a while she pushed him away with her servos and ran. Blurr didn't move to follow her; he just stared at the wall where she'd been. Bumblebee, himself once more, appeared at the end of the alley.

"Blurr, you okay?" he asked. Blurr turned and walked passed him, not bothering to answer.

It should have been ironic that there was mistletoe hanging from a window above where they'd been.

* * *

**Wow, my first sad-ish bit. Makes a change, my writing is usually depressing as slag :P**

**Anyway, I increased the age rating just to be safe, more for the chapter after next but even so.**

**Please review!**

**:D**


	9. Love's Keen Sting

**Wow, it's only been one week? It feels like an eternity since I last updated! Anyway, I like this chapter, it's full of emotion :D**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

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Chapter Nine: Love's Keen Sting

Flash Bang sat alone in her room, curled up on the berth with her chin resting on her knees. Blurr had kissed her, and she now knew that he had feelings for her, but did she return them? She couldn't say for sure. Certainly she valued him as a friend, but he had ranked far above her before his loss of memory and know that he had most of it back was it worth the hope that he'd still want her when they returned to Cybertron? She'd heard rumours that he'd had a thing for the femmes back in his racing days, but that was long ago and the mech she'd come to know seemed far more responsible than the rebellious young racer Flash Bang's femme creator had been so interested in.

But he'd _kissed _her. After all they'd been through, didn't that stand for something? Flash Bang wasn't sure if she ought to hope for it, she wasn't even sure if she _wanted_ it. But, either way, she needed rest, and so laid back on the berth and offlined her optics without another thought. Recharged didn't come for a long time, however.

Blurr spent the evening in a similar state, sat in his room and thinking about everything to do with Flash Bang. He loved her, he was sure of it now, despite the heated arguments and terse words between them. She was stubborn, which had annoyed him at first, but recently he'd seen it in a different light. She was _determined_ to do what she could for Blurr, and she had been even before she'd known the cube of crushed metal she'd found not so long ago was Blurr. Her spark had told her to save that cube, and look at what it had led to for her! She'd gone on the adventure she'd wanted – she'd seen new planets (well, one), met new bots and had become – in Blurr's optics at least – someone.

For a moment, Blurr wondered if they had some connected destiny. The seemingly coincidental way Flash Bang had found him pointed to such a thing, but now he was worried that he'd ruined everything between them. He hadn't intended to, in fact, at the time, all he'd meant through the kiss was to free her from Soundwave's control. He was still surprised that doing so had worked – wasn't it just a little bit like a fairytale ending, as the humans would say? Or _was_ it because their meeting had some greater meaning? Had their sparks been joined by Primus before their creators had even designed their blueprints?

Blurr was beginning to wonder if he'd been a hopeless romantic once, but he didn't remember such a thing. He _did _remember hordes of femmes dying for his attention when he was a racer, however. The virtual Flash Bang's lusty devotion to the virtual Shockwave had reminded him of that, however shameful it was.

_I'll have to apologise to her, _Blurr thought, _even if it is just to clear the air between us. _Having reached a compromise with himself, the speedster curled up into a tight ball on the berth and fell into recharge.

* * *

Flash Bang walked down the corridor quietly. It was early morning and she wanted to see the sun come up on the Boxing Day snow outside.

No, she wasn't avoiding anyone, or so she told herself.

She found the now-slushy snow more than a little surprising under support servo when she stepped outside, and yelped slightly as she slipped and fell to her aft. She looked around the dimly-lit street to see if anyone had seen her. No one had, thankfully, so she pulled herself back up to her support servos.

Flash Bang brushed the snow off her armour and checked for any kinks or dents. There didn't look to be any damage, so she carried on with looking for a good spot to watch the sunrise. She turned and looked up at the roof – it seemed like a good spot, so she revealed one of her hidden talents to the black, empty street. She leapt up towards a lamppost, placing a support servo against it and pushing off from it, sending herself upwards towards the overpass that ran by the plant. She grabbed the railing and flipped over the side. Up there, she looked down once more, and had a slightly nostalgic feeling as she saw the cracks from where she'd landed her ship. Optimus and his Autobots had helped her move it inside the plant not long after Flash Bang had arrived with Blurr, which was a shame as it would have made the perfect platform for jumping to the roof. Flash Bang moved to stand on the railing by the side of the road, before bending at the knees and shooting upwards. For a moment she flew through the air, but she had no time to enjoy the sensation of cool air running through her gears and circuits before flipping over once and landing on a lamppost. She leapt again, heading for the roof of the plant, and landed perfectly with a forwards roll.

"Impressive," a cool voice said. Flash Bang froze in surprise and looked up. Prowl was stood before her, sporting his new armour. Seeing the helmet reminded her of Gearshift, as it had every time she'd seen Prowl since his reported confrontation with Lockdown. If only she'd been there, she'd have wrung Lockdown's thick neck and more for what he did.

"Where the Pit did you come from?" she yelped in surprise. Prowl merely gave her a half smile before sitting down cross legged.

"I always come up here to watch the sunrise," he explained. "The tree in my room reaches through the roof." As he said this, he pointed to the foliage poking out of a hole a little way behind him. Flash Bang sighed slightly but went and sat down a little way to his left.

"I _had _hoped to be on my own for a little while," she mumbled to herself.

"You have no obligation to stay here," Prowl replied, but Flash Bang ignored him. Part of her was desperate for some company that wasn't Blurr or chatterbox Bumblebee. Neither of them said anything more for a while, as the sun had begun its crimson ascent through the sky. Flash Bang was almost camouflaged in the light as it covered the city, turning everything red. Out of the corner of her optic, Flash Bang could just about see Prowl, and for a moment thought he was watching her, but the presence of his visor made it hard to tell.

After a moment more, Prowl spoke.

"Flash Bang, might I ask you a question about Gearshift?" the ninja bot asked.

"Um, I guess so," Flash Bang replied, tearing her optics from the horizon hesitantly.

"How did he die, if I may ask?" Flash Bang was a little stunned by the question. "If it's too painful to talk about, then I apologise." Something about his tone made Flash Bang wonder if he meant that hastily added remark. Something felt to her like he was loosing his cool.

"It's fine, Prowl, really," Flash Bang lied anyway, holding back her suspicious tone. "He was murdered by Lockdown whilst trying to defend Iacon from invasion. Lockdown knew him from his Ninja Corps days and spitefully told him what he was… preparing to do at Master Yoketron's dojo, and Gearshift couldn't stop Lockdown from getting to him."

Prowl didn't say anything for a moment, and his perfectly blank expression made it impossible for Flash Bang to tell if he had been stunned into silence or was merely thinking through what the femme had told him. Before long, Prowl spoke again.

"I know Lockdown," he said simply, disregarding the fact that Flash Bang knew this. "He's tried to make several deals with me in the past, but only a coward would work with _him."_

"Didn't Sentinel make a deal with him?" Flash Bang asked.

"My point exactly," Prowl replied curtly. Flash Bang smiled slightly at that.

Flash Bang decided she had seen enough of the sunrise for that day, and said goodbye to Prowl before performing a few more complicated leaps to get down to the ground. She disappeared inside the base after casting a quick look down the road at an oncoming sports car. Prowl watched her go and, had it not been for his visor, the concern in his optics would have been obvious.

_Gearshift, what did you do?_

_

* * *

_

Blurr was getting very tired of processor checkups, but Ratchet insisted that they were necessary, particularly this time because the old bot had no idea why the human Blurr fainted in the virtual reality.

"Ow!" Blurr cried when Ratchet poked a very sensitive cable in his processor. "Careful!"

"Don't you go telling me how to do my job!" the medic roared. "I've been working in the field with this sort of thing for far longer than you've been running at the speed of sound."

"I'm a few mph faster than that, thank you," Blurr snipped. Ratchet had noticed that the speedster was acting somewhat cranky, but he couldn't tell why.

"Something on your processor?"

"You're poking around in it, so, regardless of your metaphorical meaning and instead speaking technically, yes," Ratchet rolled his optics, though he was surprised to hear him say such a long sentence. He'd been so quiet since he'd arrived!

"Is there something _wrong_, numb node?" Ratchet spat back. Blurr didn't reply, he just sat where he was and didn't say another word, which struck Ratchet as odd.

The old medic finished his check up before much longer and sent Blurr on his way, though gruffly mentioned his theory on way he'd passed out in the virtual reality.

"My thought is that in your delicate state you succumbed to Soundwave's music faster," Ratchet explained. "Also, seeing as you weren't being reprogrammed into a Decepticon, the procedure probably wasn't as complicated."

The speedster continued to remain silent as he left the med bay with his helm under his arm, taking in what Ratchet had said and rubbing his bare cranial unit with his free servo. He slid the cool blue metal helm back on as he entered the rec room and ran a servo over his fin. Ever since he'd experienced life as a human, he'd realised how much he loved his fin. It had been his signature feature since before his racing days, and it was after he thought that that it struck him that more of his memories had returned.

_I'm pretty much back together now, _he thought. _But things still don't feel right somehow._

Blurr didn't bother to look where he was going as he walked to the sofa in the rec room, he kept his optics trained on the floor as he walked, and it was because of that that he crashed headlong into an equally downtrodden Flash Bang. There was a loud clatter as their chassis bashed together and an even louder one as the slightly less stable Flash Bang went flying down to the ground. Blurr was there in a second, pulling her to her support servos, but when she looked up at him, void of any obvious emotion, Blurr just froze for a moment. He'd really hit her hard with that kiss.

"Uh…" was all Blurr could say as they just stared at each other awkwardly. Flash Bang eventually pushed him aside and picked herself up, moving to walk away as she did so.

"Flash Bang," Blurr called quietly. "I'm sorry."

Flash Bang didn't reply, but she did stop. She didn't turn to look at him, or make a sound of acknowledgement, she just stood there. Blurr was unsure if he ought to approach her, and gingerly took a small step forwards. Before he could move further, Flash Bang whirled round to face Blurr, a weak smile on her faceplate.

"We never opened our presents, did we?" she suddenly said. Blurr was a little confused by the remark, but the smile she wore gave him a little confidence.

"No, we didn't," he replied. Catching her hint, he turned to walk to the tree, which still stood in the rec room with its flashing lights and gaudy traffics signs. Blurr knelt down to where the prettily wrapped presents sat, each and everyone untouched. Sari hadn't thought to pester her friends to open them up after their tiresome escapades over Christmas.

Blurr knelt down by the tree and tugged Flash Bang's gift out from under it by the delicately curled ribbon tied round it. Sari had wrapped it in red paper that matched Flash Bang's armour and the ribbon and matching bow were in gold. He handed the box to Flash Bang, who gave it a slightly surprised look. Blurr assumed she hadn't realised he'd bought her anything. She took the gift cautiously, as if the thing would explode into a cloud of some infatuation-inducing chemical that would make her swoon over Blurr. She pulled the shimmering ribbon loose and then took to pulling at the paper. Scraps of red cascaded to the ground as the box was revealed.

"A… a photo frame?" Flash Bang said, slightly perplexed.

"So you can remember your first real adventure," Blurr explained. "It's loaded with pictures of Detroit and the base and everyone here… Do you like it?"

Flash Bang just stared at the thing for a while, but then a huge grin spread across her faceplate and she looked up at Blurr with genuine adoration.

"Blurr, I _love _it!" she cried, hugging the box to her chest. "Let me try it out."

She turned to an empty plug socket as she gently pulled the frame from the box, careful not to drop it. She placed it on the floor and plugged it in, settling back on her heel struts as she watched the photos flicker by. They were so lovely! Snowy pictures of Detroit, funny pictures of Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Sari messing around, Prowl hanging upside down from his tree, Ratchet having a stasis nap whilst Bumblebee prepared to drop a bucket of water on him, Prime standing heroically with the sun setting behind him and loads more. Flash Bang felt lubricant coming to her optics as she watched. The last one that flashed up was of Blurr in a rather stylistic pose, a blue streak behind him showing his path of movement from the road to bounce off a wall. Flash Bang grinned slightly at the image, confused feelings slipping away slightly.

As the slideshow finished, Flash Bang turned to Blurr.

"I've got one for you," she said sneakily. She crawled over to the tree and pulled out a box wrapped in shiny blue paper, just like Blurr's armour, with a silver ribbon. Sari clearly had a thing about colour schemes.

Flash Bang thrust it at Blurr, slightly awkwardly but still with a huge grin on her faceplate. She'd cheered up so much in mere moments! Blurr took it from her and pulled the ribbon off and then the paper. He had no idea what to expect, but what he found underneath made him crack a smile. It was a data pad-like journal, and the box displayed it as "The Spark Journal 5000". Blurr looked at it for a moment, just smiling, but after a while he began to laugh merrily.

"You like it?" Flash Bang asked tentatively. Blurr could only nod in reply.

"Flash, I love it!" he answered after he regained control of himself. "Perfect thing for someone who's having trouble keeping his memories together, wouldn't you say?"

"That was the idea," Flash Bang replied happily. She helped Blurr take it from the box and held onto the cardboard as she watched Blurr turn it on. He started to write something immediately, but he cheekily refused to show it to Flash Bang.

"I'll show you when it's done," he said sneakily. "You'll just have to occupy your own time for now." A sly grin spread across his faceplate as Flash Bang pouted.

"Fine," she said, pretending to be offended. "I'll go for a drive."

Blurr watched her go as he began to write in the journal. He knew exactly what he was going to write, but he'd have to show her the finished product when the time was right.

* * *

Flash Bang decided she rather liked Earth, despite the silly name, but her processor was still in turmoil over Blurr. She didn't want to think about _that _just now, she just wanted some peace. She drove through Detroit, loving the cheery feel that seemed to fill the air around her. People were so happy, giving each other gifts, chatting over cups of coffee, hugging and… kissing.

Flash Bang drove on faster, not wanting to observe anything even slightly romantic. As she drove, she found herself approaching Sumdac Tower, the enormous building reaching high into the sky. From where she was, she could just about see Optimus Prime and Bulkhead observing the new space bridge. They'd finished it that very morning and it was an impressive addition to the already impressive tower.

She didn't stop at the tower. Instead she carried on through the various districts until she found herself outside Detroit's University of Robotics, founded by Sumdac himself. Like the tower, it was an inspiring building, built from metal and glass with a huge, seamless glass dome atop it. It looked like a great big bubble, and inside Flash bang could see a number of little helicopter-like robots flitting about. What they were for, she didn't know.

Outside the university, sat on the cold stone steps, was the familiar tawny-haired head of Isabelle Thwaites. She was sat next to another girl her own age, and they were both tucking into pots of steaming microwave ramen. Flash Bang would happily have left the two alone, but Isabelle suddenly looked up from her lunch and shouted, "Flash Bang?" Flash Bang stopped and transformed, kneeling down to the girl to say hello.

"Not seen you in a while," Flash Bang remarked. "Had a good Christmas?"

Isabelle shrugged. "I was supposed to go home for the holiday, but my brother's sick and Mum doesn't want me catching whatever he's got. Do you celebrate Christmas on Cybertron?"

Flash Bang laughed. "No, Sari gave us the low down on how it works."

"I see," Isabelle said. "What are you doing this far out on your own?" Isabelle looked about for any signs of other Autobots, but there were none. Flash Bang was clearly alone.

"I've had a… trying Christmas," she explained, not bothering with details.

"Blurr made a romantic advance, didn't he?" Isabelle quipped. Flash Bang was stunned at her deducing skills.

"How in Primus' name did you know?"

"Come on, Flash Bang, you'd have to be _blind _not to see how he feels about you!" Flash Bang rocked back on her heels struts and looked away. "So, how do you feel about him?"

"That's the problem," Flash Bang replied. "I don't _know _how I feel."

"Ah, classic symptoms," the other girl put in.

"Of what?"

"Of a reluctant heart-er, spark," Isabelle explained. "You love him but you don't want to admit it to yourself!"

Flash Bang just stared at the two girls sceptically for a moment, not wanting to believe them but knowing full well they were right. She'd never let herself notice the signs. Her spark would often pulse erratically whenever she saw Blurr, her faceplate heated up whenever he got near, _and_ she'd felt some connection to him when he was just a cube of crushed metal! Didn't that mean _something? _

But she still couldn't help but wonder, as she had before: would Blurr still want her when they got home? Was his romantic attachment to her just because there were no other femmes around? Was he in desperate need of… _that _unspoken activity? Or did he really love her?

* * *

It was sometime in the afternoon when Flash Bang returned to base. Blurr was on the sofa, still typing away in his new journal, but he looked up when he heard her come in. She seemed sad again, although after a moment Blurr began to think she looked more thoughtful, like she'd hit some realisation about something that had been bugging her for a while. Before he could say anything, Bumblebee appeared from down the corridor.

"The Elite Guard's back," he said, slightly annoyed, slightly excited. He probably wanted to see the Jet Twins again. Blurr was interested to meet them, too, as was Flash Bang. Neither one had seen them yet. The trio drove to Sumdac Tower where the ship had landed. When they arrived, they quietly watched Optimus Prime talking to Sentinel. For once, no harsh words were spoken, and the two even _saluted _each other as Sentinel turned to go back onboard. Jazz was stood with him and also prepared to board but, as he did so, he saw Blurr.

"Blurr! I forgot you where here, dawg," he said. Sentinel Prime looked over at the speedster too.

"There you are! You're needed back on Cybertron, stat!" the Prime demanded. The Jet Twins peeked out from behind their Prime to see who he was talking to.

"Sir, Cybertron probably isn't the best place for Blurr right now," Flash Bang tried to explain.

"No-bot asked you, femme," Sentinel spat. Blurr seemed more than a little riled up at the Prime's tone.

"Sir," Blurr said in his more "officer" tone of voice. "I doubt I'll be of much use to Intel as I've recently had a problem with my memory banks."

"What do you mean "problem"?" Evidently no-one had told Sentinel what was going on with Blurr last time he was there.

"After finding evidence supporting Wasp's innocence I returned to Cybertron but was attacked by the Decepticon Shockwave. I was almost killed and my processor took heavy damage and when I was rebuilt my memory was gone." He pulled Flash Bang to his side. "Flash Bang here has been helping me to restore it." Flash Bang took a brief moment of pride in how Blurr only mentioned her.

"Hm," the Prime said. "So you're refusing to go back to Cybertron just because you're a few data tracks short of a full processor?"

"In a literal sense, yes," Blurr replied. Sentinel growled slightly and moved to grab Blurr. Jazz got there first, however.

"Whoa, SP!" he said in his constantly chilled out way. "Give the bot a break! Going back to all the mess on Cybertron ain't gonna help him anymore than you dragging him by the support servo onboard. I say let him jam here for a while." He turned to Blurr. "Why did Shockwave attack you, dawg?"

"Because the evidence I found would have blown his cover as Longarm," he explained. "Not that that would be of any use anymore, from what I've heard."

Sentinel looked like he may have wanted to carry on the argument, but the Jet Twins suddenly pushed passed him and began to excitedly pester Blurr.

"Mister Blurr, sir," Jetfire said as he almost pounced on Blurr, "you be telling us of your racing of days, yes?"

"Uh…" Blurr didn't know what to say in reply. He still didn't have all of his days as a racer back.

"Oh! Or maybe when you were being looking into Decepticon sleeping agent?" Jetstorm added.

"Sleep_er _agent," Blurr corrected. "I never did finished that case, "Longarm" sent me here just as I was about to make a breakthrough."

"You have suspect of prime?" both asked in unison.

"Yes, but just as I was preparing to apprehend her I was given my mission to Earth," Blurr explained.

"Who is being unknowing traitor?" Jetfire asked.

"Well, my research all pointed to Rosanna, you know, the singer?" Blur told them. The Twins nodded, hooked on this "gripping" story. "I was certain it was her, I was even referring to the target as "Flip Sides", for obvious reasons. Apparently, Shockwave didn't want her being exposed."

Despite the enormous interest Flash Bang had in hearing of Blurr's work as an Intelligence Agent, she couldn't help but wonder if she could use the ship's communication devices to talk to Mercury. She'd been missing Mercury an awful lot lately, and she just _knew _her femme creator was going to blow a circuit when she finally reappeared.

"Um, Jazz, sir?" she called tentatively. The mech turned to her.

"What's up?" he replied kindly. Flash Bang quickly explained her request, after which a warm smile spread over Jazz's faceplate.

"Sure thing, little lady," he said as he led the way inside, careful not to attract Sentinel's attention.

Flash Bang had always wanted to see the inside of the Steelhaven. She'd heard stories about it from Gearshift, of the battles it had fought in and of the heroes that flew it. Gearshift had always had a thing about heroes and their deeds. The inside of the ship was incredible! The passageways were cavernous and the white polished metal that lined the walls was almost reflective. The place was well lit and evidently well kept, making Flash Bang wonder if Sentinel held respect for the ship or simply wanted to boss about his two young rookies into doing all the dirty jobs.

The bridge was as impressive as they come, and Flash Bang couldn't help but do a small twirl as she took in the wondrous sight. Jazz chuckled slightly as he powered up the monitor and patched a link to Cybertron.

"What's yer femme creator's communication number?" Jazz asked her. Flash Bang bounded over to the controls and typed it in for him. Before long the monitor flickered and Mercury was there.

"Flash Bang?" she asked, stunned. "What are you doing on the Steelhaven?"

"Long story, Mercury," Flash Bang replied quietly. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm safe."

"Well, you've been a long time going about it! It's been decacycles!" the femme replied. Flash Bang flinched slightly at the anger in her tone.

"I'm sorry I didn't contact you sooner," she said. "The crew of Autobots on this planet don't have a communicator anymore."

"Don't give me excuses," Mercury spat. "What are you doing off Cybertron anyway? And where the slag is my ship? Do you know how many deliveries I've had to turn down due to lack of transport?"

Something was wrong. Flash Bang had done plenty of things that had angered Mercury before, but she'd never acted like this, not once!

"I'm sorry; I'll make it up to you! I'll see if the Elite Guard can take the ship back, it's not damaged," Flash Bang offered. Mercury just folded her arms.

"You'd better hope it isn't!" she hissed. "Flash Bang, if you do ever come back to Cybertron, I don't want you coming home."

"_What?" _Flash Bang screeched. "You're… kicking me out?"

"Yes," Mercury said. "Don't try coming home."

The screen went blank and Flash Bang fell to her knees, cupping her faceplate in her servos as lubricant fell from her optics. Jazz moved to comfort her, but Flash Bang just slipped out of his way and ran out of the ship. Her support servos clattered along the metal floor as she ran, and even the appearance of the Jet Twins didn't stop her.

"Why is little femme being sad?" Jetfire asked her curiously.

"Maybe she is hurting?" Jetstorm suggested. But Flash Bang just kept on going.

The other Autobots had begun filing inside as Flash Bang sped out into the open. She ran passed the lot of them, even Blurr, who quickly took to dashing after her. She threw open the door to her room and collapsed on the berth, sobbing almost hysterically. Blurr followed her in, walked up to her slowly.

"Flash…?" he called out quietly to the femme. He didn't have time to react, however, as she pushed herself upright, spun round to Blurr and kissed him, lip modules flat against his. Blurr didn't move for a moment, shocked out of his shell, but eventually he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her there. After a moment, Flash Bang pulled away.

"I love you," she whispered, looking up at him with tearful optics.

"I love you, too," Blurr replied, taking her faceplate in his servos and kissing her again. After a moment he pulled away and rested his chin on her cranial unit. They just stood there for a while, embracing each other, revelling in their shared revelation. They were in love, and now they knew it.

"What happened, Flash?" Blurr asked softly. Flash Bang wiped away her lubricant tears, which had also begun running down Blurr's chest, before answering.

"I managed to get a hold of Mercury," she began. "But she went absolutely psycho! I mean, yes, I did take her ship but even so! I did it to protect both you and myself, how can she hate me for that?"

Blurr didn't answer her; he just stayed as he was and held her, hugging her into his chest. He thought for a good long while about it, but no conclusion came. Mercury had seemed like one of the most loving femme creators anyone could ask for, and Flash Bang had always spoken of her fondly.

So what changed?

* * *

**Aww! I'm so sorry! I had to put more sadness in this or it just wouldn't feel like it was something _I _had written. The next chapter's gonna be really exciting to make up for it though, I promise!**

**Please review!**

**:D**


	10. No Place Like Home

**Wow... chapter ten... Wow...**

**Anyway, this chapter frees up the restriants of keeping to the story ever so slightly, not for long though. Anyway, I like this chapter, andI hope you do, too!**

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Chapter Ten: No Place Like Home

Mercury's ship was safely packaged onto the Steelhaven and sent back to Cybertron, but knowing the ship was going home tore a huge hole through Flash Bang's spark. She wanted to go back, so badly, but she had to stay on Earth to keep Blurr safe.

Blurr hadn't left her all night. They sat curled up on the berth together and fallen into recharge before they could do anything else. Blurr had come back online before her, and had simply watched her as she rested. He wanted nothing more than to take her home with him, but he still didn't want to go back to Cybertron.

The pair would probably have stayed where they were for longer, had they not been disturbed by the thunderous run of Bulkhead as he charged down the hallway. Flash Bang woke with a start and nearly fell from the berth, but Blurr looped his arm around her and pulled her back up.

"Whoa," she moaned. "What a way to wake up." Blurr chuckled slightly as he rolled off the berth. He sped round to the other side and gave Flash Bang a servo as she got up.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her softly. She looked up at him groggily.

"I'm okay," she lied, hardly able to hide it from her voice. "I need to see Mercury, though."

"You sent the ship back with Sentinel," Blurr pointed out. "How do you plan on getting back?"

Bulkhead ran past again then, shouting something to Ratchet about "notes on the controls" and how he had to go be elsewhere. Bumblebee's far lighter footfalls followed him down the hall, and the yellow mech shouted for his bulbous green friend to wait.

"Bulkhead's space bridge?" Flash Bang suggested, although she knew right away they wouldn't be allowed. Bulkhead still had work to do on it, although it sounded like it was down to Ratchet for the day.

Even so, the two found themselves on the roof of Sumdac Tower before much longer, mostly for the view, but Ratchet's grumbling away behind them distracted them somewhat.

"Need a servo?" Blurr offered.

"I hardly think you'll be of any help," the old medic mumbled. "Unless you're suddenly _brilliant_ at space bridges like our very own Bulkhead?"

Blurr chuckled slightly. "I'm no mechanic."

"And neither am I!" Ratchet moaned.

The lift arrived at the roof just then, and the portly Captain Fanzone stepped off. He had his phone in hand and was roaring down the line about technical problems with his droids, two of which flew up over the side of the building as he hung up.

The chubby little man took to running about the roof, ignored by Ratchet and made a source of entertainment to Blurr and Flash Bang. They'd help him, for sure, but right now the scene was too funny to put a stop to. Just as things started to get a little out of hand, however, the space bridge roared into life, surprising everyone. A harsh wind began dragging everything towards the shimmering blue light. Snow, scrap metal and bits of paper all flew into the vortex, but the three Autobots stood firm against the harsh whipping wind. Fanzone, however, was not made of several tons of metal, and was sucked in, yelling in shock as he flew, limbs flailing in panic.

"That was unexpected," Blurr remarked.

"That's probably not good," Ratchet said as he prepared to jump in after him. "Don't touch the controls!" he added as he leapt.

There was a blinding flash of blue light as the medic vanished into the blue, and Blurr and Flash Bang found themselves alone with the rogue police droids. Swatting one away with her servo, Flash Bang walked up to the controls to take a look.

"Blurr, look at this!" she cried cheerfully. "The coordinates are set for Iacon!" Blurr looked at the screen over her shoulder; a slight frown creasing his faceplate.

"If you're thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing, then don't even think about it!" Blurr said, clocking on to what was going through Flash Bang's processor. Flash Bang was wondering how one bot could get the word "think" into a sentence so many times.

"But Blurr, I _need _to see Mercury!" she complained, turning round to face him. She had a slightly challenging look in her optics.

"She said she never wanted to see you again!" Blurr pointed out. "Just drop it, Flash, and lets go back to the base."

Stupidly, Blurr turned away to walk to the lift, and that was when Flash Bang took her chance. She leapt up into the light and vanished. Blurr spun round as he heard the noise of the machine and nearly exploded when he saw she was gone.

"_Flash Bang!" _

_

* * *

_

Flash Bang dropped to the ground with a clatter of metal against metal, landing perfectly on her support servos. She looked around where she was and grinned, she wasn't far from home at all, she was on Avalon Boulevard – Iacon's shopping district!

"Oh, Primus, another one!" a female voice cried. Flash Bang turned to see an orange and red femme stood by an enormous white mech, both looking like they may malfunction.

"You don't have a disgusting organic with you, too, do you?" the mech asked.

"Uh, no," Flash Bang replied, guessing they meant Fanzone.

Without another word, Flash Bang took off down the street, taking corner after corner until she came to a screeching halt at the sight of a billboard she's never seen before. The billboard was plastered with propaganda, most of it featuring either Sentinel Prime or the Autotroopers surrounding a shady Decepticon that didn't look too different from Shockwave.

A shudder tore through her as Flash Bang thought of that Decepticon. How could one bot be so sadistic, to crush another mech whilst he still functioned? Flash Bang couldn't even imagine the pain Blurr must have felt as those walls came in on him.

_Hang on, _Flash bang suddenly though, _Blurr didn't follow me. _Flash Bang looked back the way she had come and scanned the area around her. There was absolutely no sign of him! Did he trust her to come back in one piece?

Shaking the thought away, she pottered along the alley, finding herself more or less at Mercury's front door. She pushed the shop door open and quietly called out.

"Mercury?" Flash Bang called, but no-one answered. "Mercury, are you home?"

Flash Bang stood before the shop counter, shivering slightly with nerves. It was far too quiet in the building, so she guessed Mercury was out on a delivery. But then she heard a slight shuffle upstairs, like someone walking but trying not to be heard. Cautiously, Flash Bang walked to the stairs. She saw nothing. The lights were off and it was pitch black, but she heard shuffling again. She began to climb the stairs, one support servo at a time.

Something wasn't right. The further up the stairs she climbed the more desperate the shuffling became. It sounded to Flash Bang like someone being held back. She carried on, anyway, and as she came to the landing, she noticed light pouring from Mercury's room. The door was open, and the shuffling had now turned to what sounded like thrashing. What was going on?

She found out soon enough.

"Flash Bang, _run!" _Mercury screamed. Flash bang's spark leapt in fear as Mercury was thrown from the room. She crashed into the opposite wall and slumped to the floor.

"Mercury!" Flash Bang cried, but she had no time to see to her femme creator as the doorway was filled with a tall and imposing mech.

"You see what happens when you get involved with Intelligence Agents?" Shockwave purred. He reached out to Flash Bang, those menacing claws extending out to her faceplate. He gently dragged his claws down her cheek, and Flash Bang was too terrified to do anything but stare.

Flash Bang wanted to scream, she wanted to run, she wanted to do anything other than _stand there like a malfunction _but she just couldn't! She felt completely frozen, and all the while Blurr's attempted murderer was advancing on her.

Mercury, however, was beginning to come round, and took one glance at her sparkling on the verge of being attacked by a Decepticon and lurched out to grab Shockwave's support servo. Shockwave looked down at her, irritated at her pathetic attempt to stop him, but then something happened that he certainly hadn't been expecting. Liquid mercury began to gush out of the palm of the femme's servo, flooding the pistons and cables in his leg. Shockwave yelled in pain as the silver liquid solidified on Mercury's command, crushing the cables and wires in his support servo. Some of it had leaked onto the floor, and when that solidified it kept the 'Con's support servo securely in place.

"That won't stay solid for long, Flash, _run!" _Mercury yelled. Flash Bang turned to do so, but Shockwave wasn't about to take this for defeat.

"Don't go anywhere," he roared. "Or I'll kill her." Shockwave pointed his gun at Mercury, who gave a slight whimper at the sight of the massive gun, but after a moment she shook it off and snarled at the horned slagger.

"Don't worry about me, Flash," she pressed. "Just go!" But Flash Bang cared far too much about Mercury to go and leave her to die, and so raised her servos in defeat.

"What a good little femme you are," Shockwave purred. He bent down and grabbed Mercury by the back on her neck, lifting her up off the floor to her support servos before throwing a pair of stasis cuffs on to her wrists. The mercury in Shockwave's support servo had melted by now, and so he moved with ease to Flash Bang, taking out another pair of cuffs.

Flash Bang, however, was not done. Quick as a flash, she brought down her servos and threw a flash bang charge right at Shockwave, but he had the reactions of a ninja bot, and batted the thing through Mercury's room and out the window. Flash Bang had never once thought her charges could seem so insufficient.

"Good try, little femme, but not good enough."

The stasis cuffs clicked onto her wrists.

* * *

"Now, both of you may exercise patience for a while whilst I take care of a few other things," Shockwave said as he powered up a retrieval beacon generator linked to a plasma dynamic thruster, which were basically the two main parts to a space bridge.

"Where are you sending us?" Mercury asked quietly. The Decepticon didn't bother to turn his one red optic to her.

"Your little sparkling ought to be able to tell you when you get there," he said, a sneer in his voice.

Shockwave had chained the two femmes together and shoved the plasma dynamic thruster between them. He tapped coordinates into the retrieval beacon generator and activated it. Blue light enveloped them both and suddenly they were sat on a grey and barren little lump of rock. When the light faded, Flash Bang's sight was filled with a stunning view of Earth, not that the beauty of the planet mattered to her right then.

"Mercury, I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Mercury replied. "You took the ship to save yourself and Blurr, I can't really be angry at you for that."

"I meant for coming home," Flash Bang clarified. Mercury almost chuckled at that.

"Shockwave made me say all of that, Flash Bang," Mercury told her. "I didn't mean a single word of it."

Flash Bang smiled happily and relaxed against her femme creator's back. For a moment, the two just sat there, happy to be back together at last, but Flash Bang couldn't help but lament her decision to jump through the space bridge.

"Shockwave's after Blurr," Flash Bang realised. "That's why he wanted me to come home. Maybe he thought Blurr would come with me so he could grab him then."

"Why didn't he?"

"I don't know," Flash Bang admitted. "Maybe he thought I'd stick with Ratchet?"

Mercury chuckled. "He clearly doesn't know you like I do if he thought that. You've been a little rebel ever since you were protoformed." The two were silent for a moment longer, but then, Mercury asked Flash Bang something she'd wanted to ask ever since she knew she wanted to be a creator.

"Do you love him?"

Flash Bang didn't answer right away, almost as if she expected the question but wasn't yet sure how to answer it. Mercury wasn't like most bots; she could deduce almost anything from the slightest of clues, particularly when it came to the emotions of others. She didn't want to know if Flash Bang was in love with Blurr – she _already_ knew.

"I guess I do," Flash Bang answered. "But how did you guess? We've hardly spoken since I came home."

"Shockwave gave it away more than you did, sweetspark," Mercury replied.

"Don't tell me you got it from that "involved with Intelligence Agents" remark," Flash Bang gasped.

"Alright, I won't," Mercury chuckled and, despite everything, Flash Bang joined in.

* * *

"I should have gone after her; I can't believe I _didn't _go after her! I'm such a malfunction; I just watched her go! What sort of mech would do that?"

It had become evident that Blurr's speech became more like it used to be whenever he was agitated, and the long-winded sentences began pouring out of his fabled motor mouth as he fretted over Flash Bang. He had a point though, why _hadn't _he followed her?

"Blurr, just relax! She's a tough femme, she'll be fine!" Bumblebee said, desperate to calm the speedster down.

"But what if she's _not _fine? What if a Decepticon's got her or she's stranded or she didn't warp to Cybertron? What if the space bridge malfunctioned and her parts are scattered across the galaxy?"

"Okay, whatever _did _happen, I'm sure it's not _that," _Bulkhead said, defending his creation. But Blurr didn't seem to care about what the space bridge genius had to say, he only cared about wearing a rut into the floor by pacing at a super-fast rate. It would have been a comical sight had it not been for the seriousness of the situation.

"I'm certain Ratchet will bring her back safely," Optimus promised. But when Ratchet appeared moments later accompanied by Jazz and Captain Fanzone, carrying the Magnus Hammer and with no Flash Bang, Blurr was almost too distraught to speak.

Almost.

"Where is she? Why didn't she come back with you? Is she hurt? Did she go to see Mercury?"

"I don't know, Blurr!" Ratchet moaned at the speedster. "I didn't even know she'd gone through!"

"She's in trouble," Blurr moaned. "I just _know _she's in trouble! Don't ask me how I know, I just _know! _I have to find her; I don't care what it takes. I _will _find her!"

"… I'm picking up two Cybertronian energy signatures on the Moon," Prowl said, looking at the monitors dotted about.

"It's Flash Bang!" Blurr cried. "I can use the space bridge to get to her, I'll go right now!"

"Blurr, it's not certain that either of those signatures is Flash Bang," Prowl continued. "And even if one is, who is the other one?"

Blurr continued his protest, shouting that he didn't care and was going for it. Before he could run to the Tower however, Bulkhead managed to pin him down, holding him flat against the floor with a single massive servo. He thrashed and kicked out and generally behaved like a small child not getting their way, but in the end he just gave up and let his body go limp in Bulkhead's grip. Optimus approached and put a servo on the blue bot's shoulder.

"We'll find her, Blurr," the Prime promised. "Whatever it takes, we'll make sure she's okay."

* * *

Flash Bang and Mercury had both fallen into recharge, having nothing else to do, but both were shocked out of their shells as the sound of a transwarp field materialising tore through their audio sensors.

"Primus, what was that?" Mercury yelped. A heavy, clanging _thud _behind them drew their attention to the cause – a bloody great Autobot ship.

"Autobots! We're saved!" Flash Bang grinned, but her faceplate fell the second the hatch opened and Shockwave stepped out. "Aw, slag."

Shockwave chuckled cruelly as he laced his claws through the chains keeping them together and began dragging them towards the ship. Flash Bang tried digging her heels into the dirt, but Mercury just squeezed the younger femme's servo in her own to tell her to stay calm. The dirt changed to a metal ramp as they were brought onto the ship, and the two femmes looked up fearfully as they were dragged passed Megatron.

"These are the femmes you were after?" Megatron queried. "They look far less than anything you've dragged in before." Flash Bang did her best to suppress the shudder that came as she realised what the Decepticon leader meant. Mercury glowered at Shockwave.

"You do anything like that to my sparkling-" she began, but a mouth clamp was clipped to her faceplate before she could finish. He left Flash Bang free, however.

"I can assure you my Lord, I have not claimed these two for anything like that," Shockwave replied. He continued to drag the two bound femmes through the ship, and all the while Flash Bang was growing more and more terrified that she wasn't just there as bait.

Shockwave opened a door and threw the two inside. There was a tremendous screech as they slid along the metal floor, their armour scratching faint lines into the polished surface. Mercury managed to pull herself, and therefore Flash Bang, upright, pushing against a berth with her support servos for leverage.

"Don't go anywhere," Shockwave taunted as he closed the door. The door hissed shut and Flash Bang and Mercury were left alone.

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**OMG! Shockwave's got them! Oh noes! D:**

**Please review!**

**:D**


	11. Help Me, Help Me

**I literally finished this chapter moments ago. I'm not sure if it does it justice but I do quite like it :D**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

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Chapter Eleven: Help Me, Help Me

Flash Bang managed to pull a servo free of the chains, after which she took to pulling them from her body. Mercury wriggled her servos free and would have sighed in relief as the chains fell free had it not been for the mouth clamp. After both femmes were freed, Mercury pulled clamp away and rubbed her chin.

"I hate those things," she remarked. "Gearshift put one on me once when he was up to something sneaky."

"I dread to think what you're talking about," the younger femme said as she stood up. She turned around to look out the window, but instead came faceplate to faceplate with a vibrant pink Autobot. Flash Bang yelped in surprise and tripped over as she took a step back. As she crawled backwards, Mercury stepped towards the berth to take a look at the Autobot.

"She's offline," Mercury said, waving a servo over the femme's optics. "You ought to recognise her, Flash. Arcee here was one of your teachers when you were just a little sparkling."

"Really?" Flash Bang asked curiously, but then shook her cranial unit. "I really don't think that's important right now. We need to get out of here!"

Mercury put her purple servos on the young femme's shoulders and pulled her up from the floor. Flash Bang didn't seem to want to move from Mercury's side as they both looked over their surroundings.

"So how do we get out?" Flash Bang asked. Mercury took a look at the door. There was no obvious release switch, and if it was opened by one of the consoles in the room, well, they were stuck there as they were all offline.

"There isn't an obvious way," Mercury mused. "And I don't fancy trying to batter through the window."

Flash Bang laid a servo against the glass. "Blurr's gonna be freaking out," she mumbled. "What are we going to _do?"_

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"We need to find out what Megatron's doing on the Moon," Optimus said to the crew.

Bumblebee smirked. "Who'd be crazy enough to volunteer for _that _mission?" The group stare told him exactly who.

"I want to go," Blurr demanded, arms folded. Ratchet glared at him.

"You're not going anywhere," the old medic growled. "You're into too delicate a state to go bounding off into Decepticon territory."

Blurr growled and stormed off to his room as a transmitter was handed to unfortunate little Bumblebee.

* * *

The door hissed open, sickeningly slowly. Flash Bang readied herself to bolt passed whoever was opening it, but found a gun pointed right at her as soon as the door slid all the way open. Shockwave stepped inside, canon level with the two femmes, keeping them rooted to the spot.

"One move and I blast you to pieces," he snarled. He stalked forwards, and at first Flash Bang thought he was going to grab her. But then he walked passed them, gun still trained on them, and scooped Arcee from the berth. He didn't bother to explain what he was going to do with her as he flung the unconscious femme over his shoulder, but his and Megatron's brief conversation earlier gave Flash Bang and Mercury a few ideas. None of which were correct, thankfully. The door hissed closed once more.

* * *

"We have to get out of here!" Flash Bang groaned after a long winded attempt to pry the door open with her bare servos. She slumped against one of the consoles and buried her cranial unit in her servos, sobs threatening to overcome her. She was terrified, not so much for herself but for Blurr and Mercury. She hadn't ever thought that going on an adventure would entail actual _danger –_ she'd just thought it'd be fun_. _

Well, shot down there, eh?

Mercury was about to console her sparkling when a faint _whoosh _came from outside, simultaneous to an orb of blue light forming and vanishing. A transwarp field. Who would transwarp up here? Unless it was another Decepticon. Mercury and Flash Bang peered out the window, and Flash Bang's spark gave an involuntary little leap of joy.

"Bumblebee!" she cried, clapping her servos together.

"Who?" Mercury asked, looking down at the little yellow mech curiously.

"A friend of Blurr's – from the Earth team," Flash Bang exclaimed. "What's he doing here?"

Bumblebee held onto the transmitter like his life depended on it, but he didn't expect a large chunk of metal to come cascading off the Nemesis and fall right to where he was. He transformed in a hurry, dropping the transmitter which was subsequently destroyed when the metal fell on it.

"Oh no, the transmitter!" Bumblebee whispered to himself. But he couldn't stop, so quickly he found a way into Omega Supreme – a small service hatch with just enough room to squeeze through. He crawled through the web of wires and cables, trying his best to make as little noise as possible. He had no idea where the 'Cons where – he could be literally right under their support servos.

As he crawled forwards, Bumblebee saw a small square of light – a hatch into the ship's corridor. He slowly pushed it open, conscious of the fact that Decepticons could be all over him in a second. He wouldn't stand a chance if he was caught. As the hatch opened he looked up and down the corridor. No-bot was there, so he pushed it further open and climbed out.

"What am I gonna do without the transmitter?" he moaned.

"Bumblebee?" someone called. Bumblebee jumped and threw his servos in the air, thinking he'd been caught. But then he ran the voice clip through his processor again. It was Flash Bang.

"Flash Bang?" he called out quietly. "Where are you?" A series of loud thuds answered him.

"Behind this door," the femme replied. "Can you get us out?"

"Us?"

"My femme creator's been caught, too," Flash Bang explained. A quiet "Hello" followed this. Bumblebee took a look at the door.

"This is a security door," he explained. "You can only open it with the pass code and my bet is Megatron's changed them all." He tried using his own pass code, but, like he'd guessed, it didn't work.

Bumblebee had a thought. "Can you open up your comlink so we can listen to what's going on back on Earth?"

"My comlink's slagged," she replied. "It's not worked properly in stellar cycles."

"What is it with you and communication devices…?" Bumblebee moaned. The little yellow mech stiffened as he heard footsteps coming down the hall. "I have to go, but don't worry, I'll tell Blurr you're here."

"Bumblebee, Shockwave's using me as bait to _trap_ Blurr," Flash Bang told him. "Whatever happens,_ don't let Blurr come here!"_

Without another word, Bumblebee slipped back into the tunnel and closed the hatch, later popping up in the room where Arcee was now being kept.

* * *

"I found her!" Bumblebee said as he charged into the base. "Blurr! I found Flash Bang!"

Blurr was literally there in a flash, blue after images trailing behind him. "Where is she?" he demanded, servos spread wide in anticipation.

"She _is _on the Moon!" the yellow bot replied. "She's stuck in a security room onboard Omega Supreme with her femme creator!"

"Then that's where I'm headed," Blurr snarled, preparing to run.

"But she said you shouldn't go!" Bumblebee protested. "It's a trap!"

But neither of them said another words as the sky outside darkened rapidly as the Sun's light was blocked out by three enormous purple Supremes, each and every one with the face of Lugnut.

"What in the Pit are _those?" _Blurr mumbled. Theories began pouring out of Ratchet (who had emerged from his med bay when he'd heard Bumblebee's ecstatic cries), and it was decided it was Starscream's cloning technology in Supreme shells.

Slag it, now Blurr had to help protect the city.

Although it didn't turn out that way. Ratchet had managed to put together a jetpack for Optimus, which the either brave or foolish Prime – take your pick – used to fly up to the Lugnuts, Magnus Hammer in hand and Prowl by his side. Sari and the others made their way to Sumdac Tower, all the while conscious of the gunfire and rapidly appearing and disappearing clouds and thunderbolts over head. Blurr stuck close to the others, running at their speed. He sped up, however, when he heard the loud whistling of an incoming missile.

_BOOM!_

The ground shook violently as the missile hit the ground just metres away from Blurr. The speedster was blown to the ground as the air rippled with the force of the explosion. He leapt back onto his support servos in a flash and a plan quickly formed in his processor.

"I'll lead away their fire," Blurr declared. "You guys get to the Tower and ready the space bridge. I won't be far behind you."

"But-" Bumblebee began only to be cut off by Blurr.

"_GO! _Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!_" _the speedster roared as he darted out into the road, zigzagging back and forth as the ground exploded around him. Bumblebee didn't move, he wanted to help his friend, but then Bulkhead's huge claws laced around his arm and pulled him away.

"C'mon, Bee," he said firmly. "Blurr knows what he's doing."

Blurr wasn't going at full speed; he wouldn't be able to successfully distract the Supremes if he did. But every rapid change of direction, every application of the breaks, every soggy leaf that flew up in his wake reminded him of his racing days. There was something deep in his spark that wanted him to forget about the fights, the war, Flash Bang, something that told him to just _run._

But he wouldn't do that. The rest of his spark was completely dedicated to what he was doing, to saving Flash Bang. The thought of the young red femme in Shockwave's clutches made something in his processor click, and suddenly his was speeding as far away from the Tower as possible.

_BOOM!_

Blurr thought he was to go flying through the air again as another explosion tore through his audio sensors, but he didn't. Instead, two Supremes came cascading down from the clouds. Blurr skidded to a halt and watched as the enormous purple robots fell down, down to Dinobot Island. He looked up; there was Optimus and Prowl, congratulating each other before dashing off for the last Lugnut Supreme. He smirked as he watched them go, and then turned and dashed for the Tower.

* * *

The space bridge roared into life as Bulkhead indelicately tapped a few commands into the console, and as soon as he did Blurr flashed onto the scene, having speed-climbed up the lift shaft rather than wait for it to take him up. Ratchet gave the speedster a kind grin.

"Nice work there, kid," he congratulated. "Looks like you're up to more than I thought."

Blurr gave a small smile back before turning to focus on the space bridge.

"Is it ready yet?" he asked. Bulkhead tapped a few more things into the console.

"Should be," he said. "We'll try not to lose you this time." Bumblebee chuckled slightly at that, a nervous undertone to the sound.

Blurr crouched, preparing to spring. Bumblebee and his friends did likewise, though Bulkhead's thick legs weren't particularly suited to bending. Blurr's engine revved loudly and he jumped, flying through the air and into the pulling force of the space bridge. Had he changed his mind, he wouldn't have been able to get out of the pull; it was stronger than Earth's gravity.

Everything went blue and for a moment Blurr felt completely weightless as his body was transported through space. His body felt slightly tingly, like a bad line of code had got into his processor, as his surroundings changed from blue light to a grey and barren wasteland. They were on the Moon.

There was a tremendous screech of protesting tyres as Blurr shot off, having seen Omega Supreme straight away. Bumblebee, Ratchet and Bulkhead were left in a cloud of grey dust, and only Ratchet seemed to comprehend that Blurr had shot off.

"Blurr! Get back here! You don't know where she is!" the old medic shouted, but Blurr felt he knew what he was doing, and he didn't notice Arcee stood off to one side.

Oddly enough, the ship's door was wide open. Blurr dashed through and into the ship's main corridor. He didn't care about being seen, no-one would catch him here. He ran and he ran around the ship, suddenly conscious of the fact that he _didn't know where Flash Bang was. _He really needed to remember to think before diving into a situation, hadn't he been better that that before his memory loss?

_Help!_

Blurr skidded to a halt as a voice screamed through his processor. What in Primus' names was that? It had sounded just like Flash Bang, but… in his processor? Had he lost his sanity or was something else going on here?

_Oh, Blurr, please don't be here!_

_Flash Bang?_

_Blurr?_

That clinched it. He wasn't insane; he could hear Flash Bang through his processor!

_How come you can hear me? My commlink doesn't work!_

_I… I don't know! But that's not important, where are you?_

_You shouldn't have come, Blurr! Shockwave will kill you if he finds you!_

_Where are you?_

But his repeated question need not have been asked. He shot a glance down another corridor and the response from his spark was almost crippling! It felt as if he was physically being drawn down the corridor. The sensation was incredible, like a magnet or a tow cable was pulling him forward. Without thinking, he began to run the way he was being drawn, unable to resist. What was happening to him?

Blurr was suddenly aware of a loud banging as he rounded a corner. He skidded to a halt in front of a door – a thick metal door with no obvious release and something on the other side banging away relentlessly. Blurr put his servos flat against the metal and called out, "Flash Bang?"

"Blurr!" the femme replied. "Get out of here!"

"Not without you!" he replied. He flung out an arm, his chainsaw buzzing as it flicked out and ready to tear through the obstacle before him. There was a horrible, audio sensor-splitting screech as the rotating weapon sliced through the door like a knife through butter. He quickly set to carving a hole in the metal. He'd made a large slit in the door, and was wondering if it was worth trying to push it open, but he didn't get the chance to try.

"I knew you couldn't resist," came a snarl. Blurr looked up just in time to take a shot from Shockwave. He was flung backwards into a wall, jarring his processor painfully and momentarily disorientating him. The Decepticon advanced on him just as Flash Bang and Mercury pushed on the tear in the door, folding the metal to the side and out of their way. Flash Bang was about to call out to Blurr but Mercury clamped a servo over her mouth.

Blurr shook his dizziness away and pulled himself up, supporting himself against the wall. This was going wrong already. He wasn't going to back down, however. One of them, whether it be either him or Shockwave, was going to need some serious repairs after this.

"Such a valiant little bot, aren't you?" Shockwave taunted. "Did you really think it would be as easy as waltzing in here and taking back your dearly beloved?"

Blurr could only glare at the giant mech, his systems going wild from the hit he'd taken. He wasn't built for taking such a hit. He wasn't built for taking particularly severe damage, full stop, as proven by the compactor. But there were bots' who could've taken that easily.

Ironhide, anyone?

Blurr's spark began pulsing quickly in fear as Shockwave stalked towards him, claws of one servo extended and the canon on the other raised. Warning messages were relaying themselves across Blurr's heads up display, warning of the internal and external damage done to his systems. So Blurr did what he'd been built to do and ran. He dashed round the mech, but Shockwave had seen the move coming, and turned his canon on Flash Bang the second Blurr moved.

"Don't go anywhere," he hissed. "Or she dies."

Flash Bang shrank back at the sight of the canon, pushing Mercury back into the room and throwing her a warning look. Mercury understood instantly what her sparkling was preparing to do, and retreated back into the room.

Blurr knew he was done for. If he fled then it would be then end of Flash Bang and Mercury, so staying and giving himself up was all he could do. Shockwave would have smirked if he'd had a mouth.

"You're more obedient than I recall," he purred mockingly. Shockwave raised a servo and backhanded Blurr across the faceplate. Blurr fell to the floor, out cold and limbs splayed all over. Shockwave took a step towards him, lacing his claws around the speedster's neck and pulling his limb body from the ground. He pointed his canon directly at Blurr cranial unit, preparing to fire.

"STOP!" Flash Bang shouted. Shockwave turned to her, but that was one of the biggest mistakes he would ever make. Flash Bang threw a servo out, and with it a flash bang charge. Shockwave recoiled as the thing hit him directly in the optic and roared in agony as it exploded, the thunderous boom tearing through his audio sensors as the light burned in his vision. He clawed at his faceplate, desperately trying to rid himself of the pain.

To the unconscious Blurr, the bang was a faint, resounding boom, just loud enough to rouse him from his unconscious state. He pushed himself up stiffly before taking in the sight before him. Shockwave was clawing at his single optic, so if Blurr was going to strike it had to be now. He leapt to his support servos and dashed at the towering mech, chainsaw buzzing on his arm. The serrated, rotating blades ran through the Decepticon easily, and everything seemed to stop for Shockwave as his entire frame was wracked with an intense, crippling pain. Energon spurted from the wound, leaking down his chassis and along Blurr's chainsaw. Mercury looked out from the room to see what had happened, and gasped at the sight. Flash Bang only glared on coldly. Shockwave had crushed Blurr. He deserved this.

There was a sickening crunch as Blurr pulled his chainsaw free, Energon dripping to the floor from the blades. Shockwave fell to his knees, wrapping a servo around the wound. The pink liquid seeped through his claws, running the length of his arm before dripping from his elbow joint. The Decepticon stayed stock still, and for a moment the three Autobots assumed he'd gone into emergency stasis. But then the canon came up once more.

_BOOM!_

The explosion didn't hit any of them directly, but none of them knew if that was the intention. The explosion did, however, rock the corridor and disorientate the three of them, knocking them all to the ground as they blacked out. The last thing anyone of them heard was a slow, yet urgent clatter of heavy support servos fleeing the scene.

* * *

**I was thinking this would be the last chapter, buuuut I changed my mind when I wrote it up. So, there will be ONE MORE CHAPTER after this, then I'm done... sadly.**

**:')**

**Please review!**

**:D**


	12. Aftermath

**OMG, the last chapter? How did this happen?**

**This is the first time I've seen a fic through to the end, and I have to say I'm a little sad it's over. I've had such fun with this!**

**Enjoy!**

**

* * *

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Chapter Twelve: Aftermath

Flash Bang flickered in and out of consciousness, only aware of the fact she was being carried. She lolled about in the bot's grasp, trying her best to look for Blurr. Her spark pulsed, pulling her failing attention towards another bot. For a moment, she saw a flash of blue, and her spark surged again as she saw that Blurr was safe.

Quietly, she sank back into unconsciousness.

* * *

_Beep, beep. _

_Beep, beep._

_Beep, beep._

Flash Bang's digits twitched as her optics flickered online and the first thing she saw was a very concerned purple and silver femme looking down at her. The femme gently ran a servo along Flash Bang's faceplate as everything came into focus.

"Mercury?" she asked weakly, putting her own servo on top of her femme creator's. Mercury smiled gently at the gesture.

"Welcome back, sweetspark," she said softly. "How do you feel?"

"Not too bad," Flash Bang replied. "Just fuzzy."

Flash Bang pushed herself upright slowly, one servo to her cranial unit. She let out a grinding moan as Mercury sat on the edge of the berth and wrapped her arms around her.

"You were so brave," the older femme whispered. "You saved us all."

"Blurr's the one who stabbed him," Flash Bang replied. Suddenly, she couldn't have been more alert. "Blurr! Where is he?"

Mercury giggled slightly as she pulled away and gestured to Flash Bang's left. "Right there."

Flash Bang looked to where Mercury was pointing. There, laid out on another berth, was Blurr. There was a piercing _beep, beep, beep_ coming from a spark monitor next to the berth, showing the regular pulse of Blurr's tired spark. It was a slow, steady beat, and comforting to Flash Bang, telling her that he was alive and well. The femme slid off her berth and to the floor next to Blurr. She looked down at the recharging mech for a moment, but then sat down beside him and put a servo to his faceplate as Mercury had done with her.

"He sustained some mighty damage," Ratchet grumbled, looking down at the two as he emerged from a side room. "But he'll be fine, he just needs rest."

Flash Bang smiled warmly as she looked down at the mech, thumb tracing the line of his cheek plate. She hesitated for a moment, but then lent down and pressed her lip modules against Blurr's. Her free servo ran down Blurr's arm and took a hold of his brilliant white digits. Flash Bang stayed as she was for a moment, not expecting anything more than this, but then Blurr's lip modules twitched and the kiss was returned. Blurr's digits tightened and curled around Flash Bang's, his other servo looping round her back and holding her there. Flash Bang smiled into the kiss before pulling away.

"Wakey wakey, handsome," she giggled. Blurr grinned at her weakly, pushing himself upwards. The two just looked at each other for a moment as Blurr came round, but then they dove into each other's embrace.

"I thought I'd never see you again…" Flash Bang murmured into Blurr's shoulder. Blurr squeezed her tighter.

"I'd never have left you to Shockwave, not on your life or anyone else's," Blurr replied. A quiet sob shook through Flash Bang as she was overcome with relief. Blurr pulled away from her and took her faceplate in his servos, gently whipping away the slight amount of lubricant leaking from her optics with his thumb. Blurr smiled warmly, and then went in for another kiss.

"I love you," he whispered after pulling away. Optics closed, Flash Bang smiled.

"I love you, too," she replied, sliding her servos on top of Blurr's, both of which still held her faceplate.

Mercury made a small sound somewhere between a happy sob and a chuckle, drawing the attention of the two bots.

"I've not seen a natural bond like yours since I met Gearshift," Mercury reminisced. "It's rare to see a pair of bots so in sync with each other before bonding."

Flash Bang blushed and gasped at the mention of bonding, but was quieted by a small chuckle from Blurr, who pulled her tight against him, not deterred by the often overbearing femme.

"I knew there was something different about us," he murmured. "Since the beginning, we've had some weird connection. I mean, why _did_ you save my cubed remains?"

"Because… you were still alive," Flash Bang answered, casting her processor back to that fateful day. "But why I thought to even take a look at you in the first place, I can't really say. Although, you _did _land on my cranial unit…"

Blurr chuckled and kissed her cheek plate. "True. What about when I kissed you for the first time then?"

Flash Bang paused. He had a point – a kiss couldn't stop a hostile reprogramming like it had on Christmas Day, although she had heard stories of kindred sparks being able to sense each other and do other incredible things. Were they like that? Were they destined to be together and, because of this, were in perfect sync? Flash Bang knew she'd never be able to answer for sure, but she revelled in the mystery. But then there was also the fact they'd been able to _hear each other's thoughts. _Only bonded sparks could do that. And not only that, but the pull they both had felt recently when they were looking for each other – a classic trait of a _bonded_ pair. _Was_ there some pre-existent connection between them?

The room suddenly shook vigorously, and Flash Bang and Blurr became aware that they were still on the ship. Mercury chuckled as Flash Bang wobbled unsteadily, only to be held up by Blurr. Ratchet unplugged Blurr from the numerous cables wired to him as Mercury began to speak.

"After we were knocked out the Earth Autobots managed to defeat Megatron," she explained, "as well as his Decepticons lackeys. It was an impressive battle from what I've been told."

"It came at a price, though," Ratchet grumbled quietly. Blurr tensed.

"Is Bee okay?" Ratchet couldn't help but chuckle ever so slightly.

"Bumblebee's just fine," he assured. "It's… it's…" Mercury put a servo on the old mech's shoulder and finished what he'd been trying to say.

"They lost Prowl," she said softly. "He gave up his life to bring power to the shattered AllSpark. It's because of him that the Decepticons were defeated."

Flash Bang and Blurr didn't move for a moment, taking in what had been said. Prowl had fallen? Flash Bang wasn't sure why, but it just seemed like Prowl was one of the least likely to die out of the Earthbound Autobots.

_Curse him for being such a great hero,_ Flash Bang thought as she gave a small sad smile.

"What happened to Shockwave?" Blurr asked quietly after a moment of thinking Prowl's sacrifice through.

"He was caught," Mercury beamed happily. "He's locked up tight in the hold."

* * *

It was several hours later when the ship landed on Cybertron. Every Autobot in Iacon was stood waiting expectantly as the hatched opened up and the group filed out into the street. Blurr and Flash Bang walked side by side, servos bumping together from time to time, each bump making them want to link digits more and more. They gave in after a while and held servos as they walked up to the crowd, which was cheering loudly at the sight of the captured Decpticons before them. Blurr looked down at those that had been captured, and was surprised when he noticed Shockwave there, _without_ the wound Blurr had given him. Blurr's optics narrowed as he realised this. Something was wrong here – nothing could have repaired him completely in such a short amount of time. He pointed this out to Flash Bang.

"You're right," she murmured, but she couldn't must a theory as to what had happened. She wrapped her arms around Blurr, almost protectively, as she glowered down at Shockwave. The mech seemed unnatural in the way he just stood there, glaring blankly at the crowd. Sure, he had no facial features other than the single optic, but he'd never seemed _quite_ so blank before.

Something was absolutely, definitely wrong.

* * *

_Three months later._

Bumblebee knocked on the door to the fancy penthouse and waited patiently for someone on the inside to open it up. He twiddled his thumbs slightly as he heard footsteps on the other side and dropped his arms as the door hissed open and Blurr was revealed.

"Hey, Bee," the speedster welcomed, a smile spreading across his faceplate. "What brings you here? Not that we don't want you here, it's just we didn't know you were coming and we'd have sorted out some drinks if we had – you like Heinleinken, right? – and-"

"_Really_ bad news, Blurr," Bumblebee butted in. Blurr's faceplate fell and he stepped to the side to let the little yellow mech inside. Flash Bang came into the living room just as Bumblebee and Blurr did with a half empty Energon cube in one servo.

"Bee?" she said, surprised. "How nice to see you!" She put the cube down on a table and dashed over to Bumblebee to give him a hug. The yellow mech chuckled slightly.

"It's good to see you, too, Flash Bang," he replied, returning the hug. "But you guys may wanna sit down." Blurr and Flash Bang did so, sitting down next to each other on a large sofa. Bumblebee went and sat across from them on a chair.

"What's happened?" Blurr asked. Bumblebee didn't seem sure how to reply, and so just stared at his clasped servos for a moment.

"It's about Shockwave," Bumblebee clarified. "They had him in Kaon prison, in one of the high security cells, you know?"

"Yes, Bee," Blurr replied. "We were there."

"Yeah, well, it... wasn't him."

"_What?" _both Blurr and Flash Bang cried, leaping to their support servos.

"It was a drone," Bumblebee explained, "one with a hologram system to make it _look_ like Shockwave. Its power supply burned out two solar cycles ago and they only just noticed."

Blurr sat back down and rested his chin on one fist. He knew there'd been something wrong the day they'd returned from Earth. He'd torn a hole right through Shockwave's chassis and yet he'd been caught in one piece. But how had he escaped? Stowed away on the ship? No way, Omega Supreme would have sensed him.

"When I ran into Omega Supreme to find Flash..." Blurr began, "what did you and your friends do?"

Bumblebee told him everything. They'd seen Arcee stood off to one side and Ratchet had gone over to her. Big mistake – it had been a trap, and she was still stuck in teacher-bot mode, anyway. Shockwave had opened fire on the four of them – him, Bulkhead, Ratchet and Sari – only to be beaten back by Bumblebee and Bulkhead who managed to capture him as Ratchet and Sari took Acree inside.

"But _I_ fought him inside," Blurr pointed out. "I stabbed him and he escaped."

Bumblebee nodded. "That must have been the _real _Shockwave. The one we caught was the drone."

Flash Bang sank back into the sofa and buried her faceplate in her servos. The big bad bot had escaped. Primus only knew what he'd do! He could come after Blurr again, or break Megatron out of Kaon prison, or do who knows what else! She looked over at Bumblebee and asked what the Autotroopers were doing about it.

"They're on high alert. They know the threat and are going after him. But it's anybot's guess if they'll get him or not."

Bumblebee looked at the couple and their joint downtrodden expression. He grimaced slightly, guessing at the whirlwind of thoughts that must have been running around their processors, there was so much to worry about, so much to fear. So Bumblebee decided the conversation needed an uplifting turn.

"So, Blurr, I hear your back in racing…"

* * *

Blurr dropped a number of empty Heinleinken cans into the bin after bidding goodbye to Bumblebee. The conversation had turned far more positive before long, and it had turned into a friendly chat about life and how things were, et cetera. It had been an enjoyable evening all in all, but Bumblebee's sentences had been more than a little slurred towards the end of it.

Blurr walked back into the living room. Flash Bang was sat on the sofa watching the photo frame he'd given her. The pictures flashed by and the femme was on the verge of leaking lubricant tears. A thought suddenly occurred to Blurr. The journal Flash Bang had given him; he'd never shown her what he'd written. With a sly smile on his faceplate, he went and sat beside her.

The frame was on the last image of the slideshow – the one of Blurr leaping off a wall. He rather liked the image, it made him look really rather good. As he sat down, he casually slipped an arm around Flash Bang's shoulders, and she sank into his embrace without a word.

"I have something for you," Blurr murmured. Flash Bang looked up at him, curious.

"What is it?" she asked. Blurr reached into his subspace and pulled something out – the journal, as pristine as it was when he'd received it. Flash Bang's spark fluttered briefly, was he finally going to show her what he'd written?

There was a soft _beep _as it turned on and the little screen filled with writing instantly. It flashed by far too quick for the red femme to see, but then Blurr took it back to the start and handed it to her.

"Read it," he instructed.

Flash Bang did so, ever so slightly nervous. Instantly, it was obvious that the journal was an entire recording of the adventure the two had shared through Blurr's optics, and written as if he'd had the journal from the start – all taken entirely from his memory banks, she guessed. It began all "I'm so lost and confused", but then grew as he had, changing as his memories returned. What he wrote grew in confidence as he wrote of their adventure. But then the tale changed again. Around about the time the two had met that little human female – Isabelle Thwaites – the way the journal spoke of Flash Bang changed ever so slightly.

_She really is trying hard for me, _one part read. _But she's so stubborn! We argued over it at one point, but now that I think about it, I can see she really wants to help me. Have I been unfair to her? She really doesn't deserve it. She's not had the great life I apparently had…_

Then the entry for Christmas Day came, and Flash Bang's optics began to leak as she read it.

_I love her. I really, really love her. We danced on Christmas Eve. At first it was just meant to be a laugh, but then she really got into it, and she was _amazing! _How could I not have seen such grace in her before? _

_But then something really peculiar happened when we fell into recharge that night – we woke up as humans! But Flash Bang's human body was so… pretty. I'd not thought much of humans, appearance wise, until then. But when I saw her, with those tight ringlets of – hair, is it? – of hair and the delicate way she moved about, it was just breathtaking! Well, for my human body it was. _

_But then Soundwave pulled me out of the program he'd created and put me in some weird dreamscape where Flash Bang was Shockwave's little toy! It made me so angry to see it that I tore up these freaky arms that were holding me down and charged at him. Contrary to what an Autobot should so, I sliced the slagger in half – right through the cranial unit._

_I woke up after a frightful sight of Flash Bang melting, although I'm pretty sure that was the program failing and not actually meant to have happened. When I woke up, I ran from where we were being held, as Soundwave was there and he pounced on me as soon as I came-to. He set his pet kitty-cat Ravage on me, but I managed to beat it. _

_After that, Sari appeared with a bunch of rag-tag bots and declared they were going to save the others. I joined with every intention of saving Flash Bang, but I didn't realise how it would end. She's been reprogrammed into a Decepticon by Soundwave! But after some clever thinking from Sari, his control over her and the others weakened. Taking her on one-on-one, I found myself in a tight position. I couldn't hurt her, but I preferred the idea of staying in one piece, too. But then, something in my spark told me to kiss her… so I did._

The next few paragraphs were almost painful to Flash Bang as she read them. They were all angst and depression as Blurr worried about having ruined their relationship. But then it came to the day Flash Bang had managed to contact Mercury – the day she told him she loved him.

_She kissed me! She kissed me, she kissed me, she kissed me! I can't believe this! Am I back in Soundwave's dream world or is this real?_

From then on it was page after page of how he felt about her mingled into his narrative of their adventure. Flash Bang let the lubricant tears fall freely as she read on, but then she came to the last part – a little, slightly haphazard poem!

_I'm no good at poetry,_

_But I wanted to give it a go, you see,_

_So I asked my friend who speaks in rhyme,_

_(Which annoys people most of the time)_

_To help and give me a servo,_

_So I could give it a go._

_No-one was ever as dear to me,_

_As the little red femme who is so pretty,_

_Though she acts rough and tough,_

_She is really just like fluff,_

_So cuddly and loveable,_

_So darn adorable!_

_I love her, you see,_

_And I hope she loves me,_

_When I look at her move,_

_I know she wants to prove,_

_She can dance as well as a star,_

_As her skill is no faux pas._

_She is brace and selfless,_

_And very restless,_

_But she saved my life,_

_By causing Shockwave some strife,_

_And now we'll see just how great things can be,_

_When you're with a love that's meant to be._

_I love you, Flash Bang._

For a long moment, Flash Bang said nothing. She just stared in awe at what she held before her. Ultimately, it was, to her, a story of how Blurr had fallen in love with her, and this made her spark swell. It was beautiful!

Flash Bang placed the journal on the table, trying her best to remain poker faced, but after a moment, she couldn't help herself. She flung herself on top of Blurr and kissed him. Slightly surprised, Blurr looped his arms around her and drew her in close. A battle of glossas ensued as the passion built up between them, and soon Blurr showed his dominance by flipping her onto the sofa so he was leant over her. The kissing continued, and steam was beginning to vent out of both bots. The next thing Flash Bang knew, she was being carried into the recharge room, her legs still locked tightly around Blurr's waist...

* * *

Blurr held Flash Bang close to his chassis as she recharged that night, their sparks pulsing in the perfect unison of a newly bonded pair. Flash Bang seemed more relaxed about the situation than he was. Sure, a psychotic killer was on the loose, but he wouldn't come barging into Iacon and blast the city to pieces in the name of revenge, would he? Naturally, neither of them couldn't say for sure, a fact that Blurr begrudgingly accepted. It didn't make falling into recharge any easier, however.

Blurr nestled his faceplate into Flash Bang's shoulder as she recharged. She was so warm and nice to hold, and Blurr had never felt more complete in his life than he was right then. Life with Flash Bang was as good as he could've imagined, better even. She was so ambitious and fun and energetic – such a personality that complimented Blurr's nicely. She was still her usual stubborn self, however, and they'd fallen into a few minor arguments from time to time. Nothing that couldn't be fixed by a quick visit to the recharge room, however…

As thoughts of Flash Bang and just how plain _lovely _she was flew through Blurr's processor, he found himself finally sinking into a peaceful recharge.

* * *

_Elsewhere on Cybertron._

The wires and cables under Shockwave's armour sparked and fizzed as they reconnected, sending vicious little waves of electricity through his chassis, each and every one more painful than the last. He cursed and clenched his claws as the medic-drone worked away, and when it all grew too much he backhanded the little bot across the room, shattering its processor against the wall with the impact. He sat up and looked down at the wrecked drone without sympathy and nothing more than unbridled disdain.

"Pathetic," he snarled. "Everything is pathetic. But not as pathetic as that wretched speedster will be when I tear out his spark. But the femme… there are far more interesting ways to deal with her, oh yes. _She _willhave such fun taking that little upstart femme apart…"

END

* * *

**OMG, Shockwave lives!**

**:O**

**And what's this? He has plans? Does that entail a **_**sequel?**_

**Quite possibly. **

**You've all given me such great reviews for this piece that I **_**have**_** in fact planned out a sequel! **

**Will all things turn out okay for Flash Bang and Blurr? Who is this mysterious "she" Shockwave mentioned? Who is Blurr's rhyming friend? And what did Prowl mean when he thought "Gearshift, what did you do" in chapter nine?**

**You'll have to wait for me to get my ass into gear to find out!**

**A great big thank you to everyone who reviewed the story, particularly to Blackmoondragon1415, Mystitsu and Awesomeness for reviewing every week! Also, thank you to anyone who added the story to their favourites or watch and an equally big thank you to those who added **_**me **_**to their favourites or watch – I really do appreciate it!**

**Oh, and, Awesomeness, I wrote the poem in the journal especially for you! I hope I did it justice!**

**;D**

**So, be on the lookout for the sequel, which I have currently titled **_**Shards. **_**That may change but you never know. It's not going to groove to the beat of the proposed season four episodes of **_**Transformers Animated, **_**but is going to be completely separate. It will, however, include who I recently discovered to be the canon Blurr's two best friends (rhyming friend?). If you own or have read **_**The AllSpark Almanac II **_**then you will most likely know who I mean.**

**;)**

**Also, many seemingly clever hidden jokes or additions to the cast are taken from **_**The AllSpark Almanac **_**books**_**, **_**so reading them might help you notice these things (hint: **_**Heinleinken? **_**O.o). Regardless of that, you all ought to get those books anyway!**

**And finally:**

**Please review!**

**:D**


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